As soon as they’d lost the election Peter Dutton flew to America to seek advice
The New York Times has just released a study into the language used by a group of Republicans it labels “the objectors.” This is the radical posse that most stridently fights the fact that Biden won the election. Together with partisan media, this group of congressmen and women have done incalculable damage to the civic space in America, and may have broken it altogether. We have the same forces at work in Australia, battling to destroy our own democracy. The movement here is nascent, but so was the American version once.
Lets face it where you find Tony Abbott and Nigel Farage you find a vacuum in intelligence. They are the litmus test’s warning.
It is easy to mock the Australian CPAC, a tawdry echo of its toxic American model. What is crucial to note, however, is that the lies and distortions inherent in culture wars are the tool that Dutton hopes to use to turn his 17% approval rating into electoral success. The damage done to the US and UK by culture war wielding “conservatives” is inestimable and should not be underestimated. Above all, they foster bigotry and division, creating chasms in the civic space that cannot be bridged by civil discourse. Without an overlapping reality, democracy must fail.
Even before the Albanese government was certain that it would have a clear majority, the Sky News chorus had begun baying about the “mad left” taking power. What the madness constitutes is never quite made clear. It is “vibe” rather than diagnosis.
It is not to be dismissed because of that inexactitude. This is another echo of the games deriving from the American right where the so-called left is essentially unfit to hold office; only the right can form a legitimate government. The fear-mongering underpins the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, as well as the continuing efforts to “stop the steal.”
It is further developed in the US. The intertwining of the religious right with the Republican Party has given an Evangelical (Pentecostal) infusion to the mix. In the Spiritual Warfare battle between good and evil that must be won for Jesus to return, Jesus votes Republican and the “left” is a demonic force obstructing him
The Religious Right have always been here but was John Howard who sought the votes and money.Then Liberal Minister’s with no imagination have adopted their American policies here with Morrison leading that current move of entrenching the “blessed and recruiting Katherine Deves and any cost. Morrison is an evangelist who grew up with a very faith-based creationist background. A background that eschews science and data as the epistemological basis for the continued change in our knowledge of the world for one that’s less progressive but is fundamentally hierarchical and a return to the Dark Ages
It arguably took one presidential term in America for the nation to move from a modern nation with a loud Religious Right, to one where in 9 states a woman enduring a miscarriage will fear arrest for the charge that she caused it.
Australia is echoing the American attack on trans people with other campaigns yet to follow the predictable American models. Amanda Stoker, Assistant Minister for Women, has been beginning to mainstream anti-choice arguments, and George Christensen introduced an anti-abortion bill to parliament last year. The Australian Christian Lobby is not only attacking Liberal candidates who crossed the floor to demand amendments to the religious discrimination bill, but is also campaigning against candidates who support late-term abortions (which are basically an emergency medical procedure).
These are the steps towards the cliff over which the US is now, suddenly, tumbling. Australians need to approach this election with full understanding of what a Coalition under siege from religious extremism means for us. The American model should scare us.
The strength of our Federal Government has been diminished by its response to the rise of right-wing extremism and accusations of corruption, writes Bilal Cleland. WE ARE CONFRONTED in Western countries with an increasingly extreme right-wing reactionary political movement posing as conservatives. Conservatives are by nature opposed to radical change, wanting to gradually build upon already established foundations of society. Radical reactionaries want to halt change – perceived as threatening – and seek to return to an imagined Golden Age. In Western society, unfortunately, that Golden Age is the age of dominance by the White man, in the family, in society and in the world. A voting system restricted to White property-owning males of mature age and a world divided amongst the European powers as at the height of imperialism is their idea of perfection.
olddogthoughts 