Guy, I was looking forward to having someone to grieve with. I agree with your diagnosis that we are now, thanks to PJK, a nation of individual owners, focused on protecting our individual pile. But how terrible is that - and I suppose how fitting that we are now to be governed my a triumphant mediocracy.
But relief rather than grief at the finality of that? No chance now to repair the NACC or undo the Don-father's stitch-up. And maybe I'll be proved wrong, but I assume no real action on climate or inequality. All of which I had hoped and anticipated that a powerful cross-bench would drive.
Guy I’m not quite so sure you got it as wrong as you say. The asset-capital stuff is spot on but I reckon you (edit)OVERestimate how much real legs and ballast that ‘seek any avail refuge!!’ impulse is going to have with the ‘centrist-clinging’ electorate as the global economic trends really start to kick our own fragile economy in the head. Yes, the Trump factor sent people running like hell for the only available grown-up in the room. But the Greens’ (and btw Teals’, too, in ‘culture war’ terms mostly I think due Is-Pal) poor results are also a clue as to the kind of difficulties Albo might just have ‘landslided’ Labor’s way into. The tensions underlying the expectations of Labor now create the ominous conditions for a feral tectonic shift not far ahead (revolution at last comrade?!) …the ‘poor’ (and culturally adrift) who are essentially now cut out of what might be called ‘village life’ are not just …well, ‘the poor’. It’s a bigger and bigger wedge of the once-middle/working class.
Might turn out to have been a useful election to lose. Or strictly/rather, ‘not win by such a thumping’.
Also, nuclear yes is dead (alas). But that will over time only serve to accelerate the economic/village ‘functionality’ political pressures, and thus the ferality, I predict. Blackouts, like sewage failures and transport/traffic fiascos…can kill governments!
Pompous my arse- a great spray Mr Grundle. Though I think you might add John Howard very thoroughly continued PJK's social engineering with added goodies for the well-off and occasional concessions for the culturally challenged.
Cop out. I want that article. My take is that people aren't comfortable with the cringey queer stuff and all the overtly sexual stuff in kids parts of the library and schools and most people, if asked, support the UK supreme court decision but they really feel uncomfortable being asked. And they also hate all the Palestinian stuff every weekend. Sure, der, nobody wants to see dead kids on the tele but remember October 7? I used to go along with the anti-Israel crowd but then I read a Douglas Murray book. Dunno. It's not my war.
Anyway, so that's why the Greens were decimated. Most aren't sure about the whole Trump tariff thing and don't want to be called a Nazi or far right. If you were tempted to vote Liberal, there were a few issues - Dutton, obviously. At least Tim Wilson is a 'real' liberal and knows what that means, so I look forward to hearing his views on sex/gender and transing kids. Yes, it's a real thing. My son, yes, I'll still refer to him as my son, even though he would not like that ... need I say more. At a Sydney selective high school, without my permission. It is really happening.
So the way the coalition treated Katherine Deeves, Moira Deeming (I know she's a state member but the point stands) and that Dutton waved away the UK supreme court ruling as inconsequential to anyone here was appalling. I am not in any way homophobic or right wing as the media presents any person who is concerned about the intersection between trans and womens rights and the medicalisation of children (including double mastectomies on teen girls) under the very dodgy 'science' of gender affirming care. I wish more people - men included - had a backbone and would talk about this instead of dismissing it as a 'gender' issue.
They were also going to bring back the horrifically cruel live sheep export industry, put nuclear energy back on the table, make working from home illegal (somehow, but then backtracked on it), sack most of the public service, yet hire more police and basically every other unpopular thing you could pick out of your hat of unpopular policy issues, presented by the most unlikeable Queensland ex-cop whose face doesn't move when he talks.
When you think about it, it's just a least worst option consideration, then scaled up.
But how did we get here Guy? That's your job. Bring it.
So I think most people voted for what they saw as the middle.
yeah, I’ve got family skin in the trans game too….impossible to over-state the helpless uncertainty and third-party bullied exclusion and - once it’s too late to do anything but hope like hell that your own loved ‘un never comes to regret the surgeon’s knife themselves - fear and guilt that accompanies this ‘journey’ (vomits). And anger, too, every time privileged arseholes spouting motherhood platitudes dismiss those feelings - which can permanently shred deeply loving families - as merely some cynical and trivial ‘culture war’ affectation...
Yes, that rank imposter of a 'progressive' popinjay - literal Royal blood, Oik School old boy, supreme vicious bitch who turns on the waterworks if you so much as sneeze on him, tedious Rainbow ID peacocker, vapid celebrity narcissist, posey prettyposhthing etc etc etc - is a distilled exemplar of just abouit everything that has gone wrong with Lefty poltx. If I had to say something nice about the total prick I s'pose it might be that he has good hair and cheekbones...
I'll just get into trouble because I'm not as Don Watson'y as you. But I am giving you a deep curtsy, then a 'women will wheesht' cry with woad on my face. Clan Mackenzie. The Scots ended it over there and their ancestors will here, too. I'm Clam Munro on dad's side, Clan Mackenzie on mum's. This is my culture:
Bless a’ the MacKenzies an’ a’ the Mackenzie childer; their sons an’ son’s childer and their dochiter’s for a thousan‘ years to come.
Be Ye gracious an’ send doon mountains o’ snuff, an rivers of whiskey.
An’ oh lord send doon swords an’ pistels an’ daggers as monie as the sands on the seashore to kill the MacDonalds, the Clan Ranalds, and the Campbells.
An oh Lord, bless the wee coo, an’ make it a big coo.
An oh Lord bless the sucklin‘ and make it a grand board.
An oh Lord, bless the wee bairns, yon Angus, Alex an’ Bessie an’ Maggie an’ Florrie.
An oh Lord, build up a great wall between us an’ the Irish, an’ put broken bottles on the top, so they cannae come over.
An’ oh lord, if ye hae anything gude to gie, dunna gie it to the Irish, but gie it to your chosen people, the Scots, especially to the Clan MacKenzie an’ a’ their friends.
We Robertsons can claim to have hunted down the posh Tory fuckers who nixed Caledonia's rightful place onthe sceptr'd isle throne. Imagine how much saner the Brits would be if James 1 had endured...
The Libs. decline began with Howard, festered it's way through various emulators, completely misfired when they got rid of the only Lib. I've ever seen (Turnbull) who wasn't an embarassment and finally, and overwhelmingly, lost it in their latest attempted ascendancy to 'power'. If there ever was anything to thank current American politics for, it was that the Australian people ran virtually screaming towards the party that was the least like Trump. And to ensure that there was absolutely no chance of almost but not quite, a trouncing was required. There are always political casualties with such massive protest votes. Because in my opinion, that's exactly what it was.
I suspect they'll soon do the obvious and split. The less damaged will join with the Teals (who are only progressive in so far as they don't deny the bleeding obvious, e.g. climate change), the others can join the lunatics representing global agribusiness and 5G conspiracy theories.
I'd be very surprised if most people who voted Labor believe even in their very, every watered down version of social change.
Once the capital class get organised and pull the trapdoor on the idiots running the Libs, Labor will be in trouble again.
Maybe. The educated pundits ( the ones who really know their politics) are all saying that any successful regroup will take 2 election cycles. As a guessing outlier I think it won't take that long. Not these days. Our attention spans just won't handle it!
Thanks Guy for at least admitting you got it wrong - the commentariat always do this after elections (and anything else), but it's seemed extra egregious this time.
However, I'm not sure your analysis - while I agree with many of your points - isn't missing the primary factor. The Orange Man. He is Midas - everything he touches turns centre-left! Not only did he energise the natural bully boy in Dutton and the Coalition and help us see who they really are, but he is making it clear to the world who America really is and what our relationship really is. Even Dutton's very surprising and uncharacteristically gracious concession speech seemed like a recognition that we all feel this far-right rhetoric has gone too far and got a bit dangerous.
Also - enervating. Looks like energetic but means the opposite.
The Greens' primary vote declined by 0.5%. There might be some lessons for them, but I don't think the lower house seat results reflect substantial loss of support for their agenda.
". No-one, but no-one forecast this result. No-one human anyway. " NOT TRUE!
Jack Roberstson, erstwhile Yekirc stalwart long before it suffocated on woke, pinged it EXACTLY on Saturday 3rd May at approx 5.59 - I shall always keep the text, having upbraided him for EEYOR doomglooming.
too too kind, sean...one hates to blow one's own horn almost as much as one loves it when others do it for one... :-) ...
you're a wee bit kind in parts...(I was a bit off re: ON vote, unless anyone thinks that what looks likely to end up as a 1.5-2% uptick is a 'huge' one. also I of course didn't clock to dutton's or bandt's vulnerability.)
but overall, t'would serve as having been close enough (if one had been plonking down money bets, say)...not that I'm whooping for joy...as I also agreed you will recall (with your response to my more-or-less accurate soothsaying)...
sean: 'that's one bastard of a prediction'.
self: 'yep, I am becoming very pessismistic about the world...bastards bullies and mediocrities prosper'
O wot fun the next years of combined ALP Transactionalist-Right Capitalist brutality/hypocrisy + ALP Feelz-Mush Left soft pap prog smugness shall be...the 'Rainbow Bulldozer', Runders calls this Knowledge Class centrist grift. If everyone thought Dan Andrews was a deft dab hand at it, wait'll we see what several extended Albo-Chalmer terms can do...
Time for a bloke to head for the hills and prep for the zombie apocalypse mate...
Guy, I was looking forward to having someone to grieve with. I agree with your diagnosis that we are now, thanks to PJK, a nation of individual owners, focused on protecting our individual pile. But how terrible is that - and I suppose how fitting that we are now to be governed my a triumphant mediocracy.
But relief rather than grief at the finality of that? No chance now to repair the NACC or undo the Don-father's stitch-up. And maybe I'll be proved wrong, but I assume no real action on climate or inequality. All of which I had hoped and anticipated that a powerful cross-bench would drive.
I'll have to grieve on my own.
Guy I’m not quite so sure you got it as wrong as you say. The asset-capital stuff is spot on but I reckon you (edit)OVERestimate how much real legs and ballast that ‘seek any avail refuge!!’ impulse is going to have with the ‘centrist-clinging’ electorate as the global economic trends really start to kick our own fragile economy in the head. Yes, the Trump factor sent people running like hell for the only available grown-up in the room. But the Greens’ (and btw Teals’, too, in ‘culture war’ terms mostly I think due Is-Pal) poor results are also a clue as to the kind of difficulties Albo might just have ‘landslided’ Labor’s way into. The tensions underlying the expectations of Labor now create the ominous conditions for a feral tectonic shift not far ahead (revolution at last comrade?!) …the ‘poor’ (and culturally adrift) who are essentially now cut out of what might be called ‘village life’ are not just …well, ‘the poor’. It’s a bigger and bigger wedge of the once-middle/working class.
Might turn out to have been a useful election to lose. Or strictly/rather, ‘not win by such a thumping’.
Also, nuclear yes is dead (alas). But that will over time only serve to accelerate the economic/village ‘functionality’ political pressures, and thus the ferality, I predict. Blackouts, like sewage failures and transport/traffic fiascos…can kill governments!
Pompous my arse- a great spray Mr Grundle. Though I think you might add John Howard very thoroughly continued PJK's social engineering with added goodies for the well-off and occasional concessions for the culturally challenged.
Cop out. I want that article. My take is that people aren't comfortable with the cringey queer stuff and all the overtly sexual stuff in kids parts of the library and schools and most people, if asked, support the UK supreme court decision but they really feel uncomfortable being asked. And they also hate all the Palestinian stuff every weekend. Sure, der, nobody wants to see dead kids on the tele but remember October 7? I used to go along with the anti-Israel crowd but then I read a Douglas Murray book. Dunno. It's not my war.
Anyway, so that's why the Greens were decimated. Most aren't sure about the whole Trump tariff thing and don't want to be called a Nazi or far right. If you were tempted to vote Liberal, there were a few issues - Dutton, obviously. At least Tim Wilson is a 'real' liberal and knows what that means, so I look forward to hearing his views on sex/gender and transing kids. Yes, it's a real thing. My son, yes, I'll still refer to him as my son, even though he would not like that ... need I say more. At a Sydney selective high school, without my permission. It is really happening.
So the way the coalition treated Katherine Deeves, Moira Deeming (I know she's a state member but the point stands) and that Dutton waved away the UK supreme court ruling as inconsequential to anyone here was appalling. I am not in any way homophobic or right wing as the media presents any person who is concerned about the intersection between trans and womens rights and the medicalisation of children (including double mastectomies on teen girls) under the very dodgy 'science' of gender affirming care. I wish more people - men included - had a backbone and would talk about this instead of dismissing it as a 'gender' issue.
They were also going to bring back the horrifically cruel live sheep export industry, put nuclear energy back on the table, make working from home illegal (somehow, but then backtracked on it), sack most of the public service, yet hire more police and basically every other unpopular thing you could pick out of your hat of unpopular policy issues, presented by the most unlikeable Queensland ex-cop whose face doesn't move when he talks.
When you think about it, it's just a least worst option consideration, then scaled up.
But how did we get here Guy? That's your job. Bring it.
So I think most people voted for what they saw as the middle.
yeah, I’ve got family skin in the trans game too….impossible to over-state the helpless uncertainty and third-party bullied exclusion and - once it’s too late to do anything but hope like hell that your own loved ‘un never comes to regret the surgeon’s knife themselves - fear and guilt that accompanies this ‘journey’ (vomits). And anger, too, every time privileged arseholes spouting motherhood platitudes dismiss those feelings - which can permanently shred deeply loving families - as merely some cynical and trivial ‘culture war’ affectation...
At least Adam Bandt lost his seat. We can only hope that means Alex Greenwich is on borrowed time.
Yes, that rank imposter of a 'progressive' popinjay - literal Royal blood, Oik School old boy, supreme vicious bitch who turns on the waterworks if you so much as sneeze on him, tedious Rainbow ID peacocker, vapid celebrity narcissist, posey prettyposhthing etc etc etc - is a distilled exemplar of just abouit everything that has gone wrong with Lefty poltx. If I had to say something nice about the total prick I s'pose it might be that he has good hair and cheekbones...
I'll just get into trouble because I'm not as Don Watson'y as you. But I am giving you a deep curtsy, then a 'women will wheesht' cry with woad on my face. Clan Mackenzie. The Scots ended it over there and their ancestors will here, too. I'm Clam Munro on dad's side, Clan Mackenzie on mum's. This is my culture:
Bless a’ the MacKenzies an’ a’ the Mackenzie childer; their sons an’ son’s childer and their dochiter’s for a thousan‘ years to come.
Be Ye gracious an’ send doon mountains o’ snuff, an rivers of whiskey.
An’ oh lord send doon swords an’ pistels an’ daggers as monie as the sands on the seashore to kill the MacDonalds, the Clan Ranalds, and the Campbells.
An oh Lord, bless the wee coo, an’ make it a big coo.
An oh Lord bless the sucklin‘ and make it a grand board.
An oh Lord, bless the wee bairns, yon Angus, Alex an’ Bessie an’ Maggie an’ Florrie.
An oh Lord, build up a great wall between us an’ the Irish, an’ put broken bottles on the top, so they cannae come over.
An’ oh lord, if ye hae anything gude to gie, dunna gie it to the Irish, but gie it to your chosen people, the Scots, especially to the Clan MacKenzie an’ a’ their friends.
And that's what I reckon, too. Thanks, Jack x
Glorious ye are forever more.
*Swoons*
We Robertsons can claim to have hunted down the posh Tory fuckers who nixed Caledonia's rightful place onthe sceptr'd isle throne. Imagine how much saner the Brits would be if James 1 had endured...
or maybe russian aristocracy, not royalty...whatevs, his shit still stinks like everyone else's...
Fookin aye, it does.
Tim bloody Wilson.
The Libs. decline began with Howard, festered it's way through various emulators, completely misfired when they got rid of the only Lib. I've ever seen (Turnbull) who wasn't an embarassment and finally, and overwhelmingly, lost it in their latest attempted ascendancy to 'power'. If there ever was anything to thank current American politics for, it was that the Australian people ran virtually screaming towards the party that was the least like Trump. And to ensure that there was absolutely no chance of almost but not quite, a trouncing was required. There are always political casualties with such massive protest votes. Because in my opinion, that's exactly what it was.
It began with their establishment.
Their dead hand kept this country dreary and stagnant for decades, powered by deceptive Red Scares. They don't have some wonderful, ethical past.
Quite so. 'New Party' on the distant horizon? Just like how they began.
Hmm, I think that's not going to happen. See what pans out from the Liberal leadership contestation.
I suspect they'll soon do the obvious and split. The less damaged will join with the Teals (who are only progressive in so far as they don't deny the bleeding obvious, e.g. climate change), the others can join the lunatics representing global agribusiness and 5G conspiracy theories.
I'd be very surprised if most people who voted Labor believe even in their very, every watered down version of social change.
Once the capital class get organised and pull the trapdoor on the idiots running the Libs, Labor will be in trouble again.
Maybe. The educated pundits ( the ones who really know their politics) are all saying that any successful regroup will take 2 election cycles. As a guessing outlier I think it won't take that long. Not these days. Our attention spans just won't handle it!
Yeah, if the Libs split or lots defected to some sort of Teal grouping things would look very different very quick.
Thanks Guy for at least admitting you got it wrong - the commentariat always do this after elections (and anything else), but it's seemed extra egregious this time.
However, I'm not sure your analysis - while I agree with many of your points - isn't missing the primary factor. The Orange Man. He is Midas - everything he touches turns centre-left! Not only did he energise the natural bully boy in Dutton and the Coalition and help us see who they really are, but he is making it clear to the world who America really is and what our relationship really is. Even Dutton's very surprising and uncharacteristically gracious concession speech seemed like a recognition that we all feel this far-right rhetoric has gone too far and got a bit dangerous.
Also - enervating. Looks like energetic but means the opposite.
Agree. It helps me as a reader understand the issue better when someone admits to getting it wrong and goes through why.
And yes: so good to see the libs crushed. Where on earth do they go from here? Surely not further to the right.
I agree. "It's the tariffs, stupid."
Conservatives have one job, to maintain, and the narcissist Trump is pissing that up against the wall, along with the USA soft power.
History has return, and we learn it is one damn narcissist after another.
Was waiting for this analysis to drop. Does not disappoint. Now? To further recover from my Saturday night hangover.
Love the West Wing headline, can't wait for the LNP and Greens navel-gazing that's about to consume the media cycle.
The Greens' primary vote declined by 0.5%. There might be some lessons for them, but I don't think the lower house seat results reflect substantial loss of support for their agenda.
". No-one, but no-one forecast this result. No-one human anyway. " NOT TRUE!
Jack Roberstson, erstwhile Yekirc stalwart long before it suffocated on woke, pinged it EXACTLY on Saturday 3rd May at approx 5.59 - I shall always keep the text, having upbraided him for EEYOR doomglooming.
*blushes*
too too kind, sean...one hates to blow one's own horn almost as much as one loves it when others do it for one... :-) ...
you're a wee bit kind in parts...(I was a bit off re: ON vote, unless anyone thinks that what looks likely to end up as a 1.5-2% uptick is a 'huge' one. also I of course didn't clock to dutton's or bandt's vulnerability.)
but overall, t'would serve as having been close enough (if one had been plonking down money bets, say)...not that I'm whooping for joy...as I also agreed you will recall (with your response to my more-or-less accurate soothsaying)...
sean: 'that's one bastard of a prediction'.
self: 'yep, I am becoming very pessismistic about the world...bastards bullies and mediocrities prosper'
O wot fun the next years of combined ALP Transactionalist-Right Capitalist brutality/hypocrisy + ALP Feelz-Mush Left soft pap prog smugness shall be...the 'Rainbow Bulldozer', Runders calls this Knowledge Class centrist grift. If everyone thought Dan Andrews was a deft dab hand at it, wait'll we see what several extended Albo-Chalmer terms can do...
Time for a bloke to head for the hills and prep for the zombie apocalypse mate...