The Australian Right's big mistake

The people who speak and act in this way do not get it. 

They have yet to realise the basic Breitbartian principle about the ordering of culture and politics mentioned above.

They do not understand that the ruling elite, the political class, is the enemy of the people.  That the new war is between the people and the ruling class.  They fail to see that the odd rhetorical, even policy, victory over the left counts for nought in a polity where the left occupies ALL the commanding heights institutions, and where half to two thirds of the Liberal Party agree with the core positions of that left.  And they believe, utterly naively, that the Liberal Party can be “reformed” and that simply getting more of “our people” into the Liberal Party will sort things out.  They probably believe the “broad church” nonsense still peddled by John Howard and, astonishingly, by Tony Abbott, who was thrown onto the scrap heap of political history by his own beloved Party. 

And they – “Discons” once but seemingly no longer – probably think, again, without any semblance of recognition of reality, that now that Turnbull has gone, all will be well.  Getting Jim Molan up in a factional pre-selection battle is seen as a major win.  Really?  Just look at New South Wales, where the Liberal Party is an embarrassing mob of seedy, factionalised developer-buddies who roger the punters royally and line their own political pockets as part of a totally corrupt system of crony capitalism.  This is, incidentally, the state that has produced every one of the last four Liberal Prime Ministers.

The “big mistake” has consequences for the right. 

It means that the right loses every fight going.  Certainly all the big ones.  It means that resources are wasted, are mis-deployed.  It means that a little more political capital, and trust, are blown, as great numbers of “silent Australians” who now are beginning to realise, for example, that the Covid pandemic is a giant con.  It means that yet more opportunities are lost.  The leftist revolutionaries, under the cover of “Black Lives Matter” who are currently running amok in the streets are merely critiqued for being “irresponsible” for health reasons, not for their bald faced challenge to our way of life and our previously tightly held traditions.  These rabid ratbags get a pass, without pushback from the leaders of the so-called right establishment.

We have a Liberal led coalition that doesn’t have the three things needed by “the base”.  First, they are not right wing.  They are mostly left-leaning liberals, not at all conservative, or populist for that matter.  Look at who gets pre-selected.  Folks who are as socially liberal and as woke as anyone.  They are genuine leftists who are allowed to take seats at the high table.

Second, they do not in any way represent or reward the “club sensible” folks who are on the right, the men and women of struggle street so much-better-represented by Alan Jones, the “silent Australians” much referred to but little considered by those in power.  They HATE politicians.  As well they might.  For them, politicians always disappoint.

Third, the Liberals have no spine for the fights that matter, if they were somehow able to disentangle themselves from their endless, debilitating internal battles for sufficient time to see what the big war is.  They are content to do all the party-political things that will help them attain “office” – never power.  They are, ultimately, not remotely interested in wielding power in the cause of bigger goals, or in pushing back against what their base considers to be the enemy.

The current Covid malaise provides a classic case study in the right’s big mistake. 

The Andrews Government provides a hideous example, yes, of incompetence, but also of being on the wrong side of the Covid issue.  But here is the thing.  Andrews is merely a marginally worse example of the same mistake made by ALL Australian governments, of all political persuasions.  That is, to have been spooked into thinking that they need to do anything much about Covid, a mostly mild, if unusual, virus that affects most people, including those it infects, not at all.  The big mistake is to take Covid seriously, as a pandemic that means all societal bets are off, and that requires brutalising freedom, jobs, businesses, indeed, the whole freakin’ economy.  The little mistakes include hypocrisy, bungles, and so on.

So what does the “official right” do?