Meet Australia's Donald Trump.

“Make Australia Great Again”. A white slogan on a red hat. The grinning face of Senator Cory Bernardi just beneath.

The conservative MP, who is today quitting the Coalition to start his own “alt right” party, is modelling himself off US President Donald Trump. Hat slogan and all.

He formally resigned the Liberal Party in an address to the senate this afternoon. The South Australian Senator is determined to follow a more “conservative way” built on “enduring values and principles” to create real change in Australia.

Bernardi was in the US during Trump’s presidential campaign. He was there on a secondment for the United Nations.

“It was very unfashionable to support him [Mr Trump] and yet I support [him],” he told the ABC in November. “It’s not about his character, it’s not about his policy positions, but I thought he’s a catalyst for change and that many of the issues that he’s been targeted about and criticised for, I think are absolutely mainstream.”

And what are those “mainstream” issues that both Trump and Bernardi want to be the catalyst for change?

Bernardi, who is the son of an Italian immigrant, has applauded both Trump’s stance on national security, as well as the language he’s used to discuss the threat of terrorism.

“Trump is saying what so many in America (and around the world) whisper in the safety of their personal discussions,” Bernardi wrote for the Herald Sun last September. “[Trump’s] unabashed Americanism mirrors the people’s concerns.”

Senator Bernardi is not fan of the burqa – or the “you-know-what“, as President Trump refers to the Islamic headdress.

“The burqa is no longer simply the symbol of female repression and Islamic culture, it is now emerging as a disguise of bandits and n’er do wells,” he wrote for a column in The Sydney Morning Herald. “In my mind, the burqa has no place in Australian society. I would go as far as to say it is un-Australian.”

A kinder post-Trump world. Post continues below.

He says it’s Islam, not Muslims, that’s the issue.

“Islam is the problem – it’s not Muslims,” the senator said on radio in 2011. “Islam is a totalitarian political and religious ideology. It tells people everything about how they need to conduct themselves, who they are allowed to marry and how they are allowed to treat other people.”

(Sound like anyone familiar?)

Then there is global warming. The very same issue President Trump thinks has been “created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive”.

Bernardi does not believe Australia should be a part of the Paris agreement on reducing carbon emissions to combat climate change. Last December, he urged Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to withdraw from the agreement for the “good of the country“.

“The loopy left are intent on shutting down the most reliable and cost effective method of generating power that gives our nation a competitive advantage — coal fired power stations,” Senator Bernardi said.

On his website, Bernardi is petitioning the Federal Government and the Education Minister to "remove all federal funding" from the Safe Schools program.

The program is a government initiative designed to create safe and supportive school environments for same sex attracted and gender diverse people. Senator Bernardi, however, says it provides links to sadomasochism sites and encourages sexual experimentation.

In parliament in 2012 Senator Bernardi linked homosexuality with polygamy and beastiality.

"If we are prepared to redefine marriage… what is the next step?” he said.

"The next step is having three people that love each other should be able to enter into a permanent union endorsed by society, or four people. There are even some creepy people out there, who say that it's OK to have consensual sexual relations between humans and animals. Will that be a future step?''

When it comes to women's reproductive rights, Senator Bernardi is pro-life.

It is "horrendous and unacceptable" that the abortion "death industry despatches 80,000 to 100,000 unborn children [in Australia] every year," Senator Bernardi wrote in his book The Conservative Revolution.

"The political pressure from the left has ushered us into a morbid new world. It is not enough to stop the trend. What is needed is a reversal back to sanity and reason."

Mia talks to Rowan Dean to find out how America voted in Trump. Post continues below.

And that - "a reversal back to sanity and reason" - is likely what Senator Bernardi is trying to achieve with leaving the Liberal Party and starting his own, independent party. It will give him a seat in the already-colourful cross bench. A seat of power from which to recreate his "conservative way" forward.

Never mind that middle-aged straight white men are free and able to marry the women they love.

Never mind the way they can practice their religion without fear of slurs or violence or being banned from entering the country.

Never mind the fact Senator Bernardi has not faced professional or social barriers because of his gender or the colour of his skin.

Or that middle-aged white men do not have other people telling them what they should do about their body and reproductive organs.

Just like President Trump, Senator Bernardi represents the majority-that-thinks-it's-becoming-a-minority. And his main problem is simple: he doesn't feel "free" to express his feelings for fear he'll be labelled "a racist or a bigot".

He also has the in-built uber confidence of Trump. Senator Bernardi has two sons and is married to Sinead, an Irish born economics graduate. In a Monthly profile in 2012 by Sally Neighbour, his wife said their marriage worked because "they're both in love with the same man. Cory obviously has this huge belief in himself … If you didn’t love a guy who was so in love with himself you’d have a lot of trouble living with Cory."

He believes the "Make America Great Again" slogan is "one of the great political slogans of our time". And he's trying to do the same thing in Australia.

The problem being, things are already pretty "great" for people in Senator Bernardi's position. He doesn't see that it's the rest of society being left behind.