It is an inherent characteristic of social and political elites that they treat populists with either fear or scorn: Scorn when they are considered unthreatening and fear when the threat inevitably becomes real.
But what is most remarkable about this cycle — indeed the very reason it is a cycle — is that our supposed intellectual betters keep making this same mistake over and over again.
They dismiss the fears of ordinary people as ignorant or prejudicial and then are stunned when those fears manifest in the form of Donald Trump or Boris Johnson, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro or Argentina’s Javier Milei, Italy’s Georgia Meloni or Holland’s Geert Wilders.
The list could go on forever.
While the cure-alls typically prescribed by such leaders are often simplistic and sometimes downright silly, the problems they highlight and the anxieties they tap into are both visceral and real.
Yet there is a lazy and self-defeating habit among the political establishment to think that once they have dispatched such leaders they have eliminated those problems and anxieties along with them.
Of course they haven’t and so of course such leaders rise again or a newcomer rides in on a similar wave of discontent.
No lesson could be starker than the resurgence of Donald Trump. Despite almost every single political and institutional force being applied against him — including a resounding election loss, complicity in an insurrection, the prospect of imprisonment and almost unanimous mainstream media opposition — Trump is currently probably odds-on to beat Biden even if he ends up beating him from a jail cell.
How is this possible? An obvious factor is Biden’s fumbling incoherence but the true genesis goes back to before Biden was even sworn in.
How many smug elites — political operatives, academic experts, media commentators and social media activists — shamelessly crowed after the 2020 election that Biden had won the highest ever Presidential vote in US history. The nightmare was over, they said.
Less mentioned was that the second highest ever Presidential vote in US history went to Donald J Trump — millions above his shock 2016 result.
And while all the anti-Trump votes were an unprecedented coalition that stretched uncomfortably from Romney Republicans to Sanders socialists, all the pro-Trump votes were just for him.
Anyone with half a brain or a grain of understanding would instantly realise the gravity of that political mass, the latent potential energy primed to be unleashed. Instead the champagne socialists were popping their corks, thinking the beast had been slain.
They could not have been more wrong. To paraphrase a prayer once recited about another messiah, Trump has died, Trump has risen, Trump will come again.
So what does this mean for Australia?
Aside from the likely uncertainty, possible carnage and definite entertainment that will result from Trump retaking control of our greatest ally there is a threat to our own internal stability.
Australians are at breaking point. We have absorbed a steady tsunami of rate rises over the past year or so but the latest Cup Day hike and the threat of more to come — after a pause in which we dared to hope the worst was over — is a significant blow to the nation’s psyche, let alone its hip pocket.
Citizens have thus far given goodwill to a genuine government in tough times but there is a palpable sense at servos and supermarkets that the mood has gone from stoic to stressed.
Charities like Foodbank, Salvos, Vinnies increasingly and repeatedly report mainstream middle-class families with one or even two full-time workers reaching out for the first time just to put food on the table.
Worse still, it is an invisible epidemic, cloaked by pride. The lawns might be immaculate but there is nothing in the fridge.
Faced with such crisis and anxiety people will turn anywhere and to anyone who offers them salvation, be it real or imagined.
This might be cutting fuel tax or cutting immigration, which the government has so far been reluctant to do for legitimate long-term reasons.
But long-term is a luxury that few Australians can now afford. Many are at a precipice and many more have the clifftop accelerating into sight.
The increasingly comical attempts to blame Peter Dutton for all the nation’s woes do nothing to alleviate this.
Instead the government needs to face the facts and fix them. And if it can’t fix them — as may be the cold hard economic reality — it needs to at least look like its fixing them in order to give punters some temporary respite and a much-needed dose of hope. Sometimes simple solutions are needed even when they don’t fully solve the problem.
To this end it is time for the government to cut the petrol tax. Howard did it, Morrison did it, Albanese can do it. It will not only provide some short term relief to battlers but also send a message that the Labor government listens to and cares about working Australians.
And in turbulent times that message is more important than ever.
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Far-right’s stunning victory exposed
It is an inherent characteristic of social and political elites that they treat populists with either fear or scorn: Scorn when they are considered unthreatening and fear when the threat inevitably becomes real.
But what is most remarkable about this cycle — indeed the very reason it is a cycle — is that our supposed intellectual betters keep making this same mistake over and over again.
They dismiss the fears of ordinary people as ignorant or prejudicial and then are stunned when those fears manifest in the form of Donald Trump or Boris Johnson, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro or Argentina’s Javier Milei, Italy’s Georgia Meloni or Holland’s Geert Wilders.
The list could go on forever.
While the cure-alls typically prescribed by such leaders are often simplistic and sometimes downright silly, the problems they highlight and the anxieties they tap into are both visceral and real.
Yet there is a lazy and self-defeating habit among the political establishment to think that once they have dispatched such leaders they have eliminated those problems and anxieties along with them.
Of course they haven’t and so of course such leaders rise again or a newcomer rides in on a similar wave of discontent.
No lesson could be starker than the resurgence of Donald Trump. Despite almost every single political and institutional force being applied against him — including a resounding election loss, complicity in an insurrection, the prospect of imprisonment and almost unanimous mainstream media opposition — Trump is currently probably odds-on to beat Biden even if he ends up beating him from a jail cell.
How is this possible? An obvious factor is Biden’s fumbling incoherence but the true genesis goes back to before Biden was even sworn in.
How many smug elites — political operatives, academic experts, media commentators and social media activists — shamelessly crowed after the 2020 election that Biden had won the highest ever Presidential vote in US history. The nightmare was over, they said.
Less mentioned was that the second highest ever Presidential vote in US history went to Donald J Trump — millions above his shock 2016 result.
And while all the anti-Trump votes were an unprecedented coalition that stretched uncomfortably from Romney Republicans to Sanders socialists, all the pro-Trump votes were just for him.
Anyone with half a brain or a grain of understanding would instantly realise the gravity of that political mass, the latent potential energy primed to be unleashed. Instead the champagne socialists were popping their corks, thinking the beast had been slain.
They could not have been more wrong. To paraphrase a prayer once recited about another messiah, Trump has died, Trump has risen, Trump will come again.
So what does this mean for Australia?
Aside from the likely uncertainty, possible carnage and definite entertainment that will result from Trump retaking control of our greatest ally there is a threat to our own internal stability.
Australians are at breaking point. We have absorbed a steady tsunami of rate rises over the past year or so but the latest Cup Day hike and the threat of more to come — after a pause in which we dared to hope the worst was over — is a significant blow to the nation’s psyche, let alone its hip pocket.
Citizens have thus far given goodwill to a genuine government in tough times but there is a palpable sense at servos and supermarkets that the mood has gone from stoic to stressed.
Charities like Foodbank, Salvos, Vinnies increasingly and repeatedly report mainstream middle-class families with one or even two full-time workers reaching out for the first time just to put food on the table.
Worse still, it is an invisible epidemic, cloaked by pride. The lawns might be immaculate but there is nothing in the fridge.
Faced with such crisis and anxiety people will turn anywhere and to anyone who offers them salvation, be it real or imagined.
This might be cutting fuel tax or cutting immigration, which the government has so far been reluctant to do for legitimate long-term reasons.
But long-term is a luxury that few Australians can now afford. Many are at a precipice and many more have the clifftop accelerating into sight.
The increasingly comical attempts to blame Peter Dutton for all the nation’s woes do nothing to alleviate this.
Instead the government needs to face the facts and fix them. And if it can’t fix them — as may be the cold hard economic reality — it needs to at least look like its fixing them in order to give punters some temporary respite and a much-needed dose of hope. Sometimes simple solutions are needed even when they don’t fully solve the problem.
To this end it is time for the government to cut the petrol tax. Howard did it, Morrison did it, Albanese can do it. It will not only provide some short term relief to battlers but also send a message that the Labor government listens to and cares about working Australians.
And in turbulent times that message is more important than ever.
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