05-22-2022, 05:49 AM
For the sake of moderate Liberal voters, I hope the Liberal Party goes back to the centre and tries to woo the Teal independents to join the Liberal Party. At least that would give the Liberal Party an incentive to reverse the swing to the hard right.
I had the misfortune of tuning into Sky News today and they were clearly running the Fox News line. They had the requisite blonde with long hair in an evening dress hosting with a brash young right-wing guy (classic Fox News) and these 2 geniuses argued that Scomo lost the election because he tried to placate various groups and by doing so he had lost his "authenticity". The blonde girl said she liked him being filmed at Evangelical churches as this was his authentic self. They both agreed that the next Liberal leader has to learn this lesson and not stray away from authenticity (i.e. has to be an uncompromisingly hard right wingnut). They then went on to credit the Scomo government with everything good in the world.
What I take from this is that the assumption the Liberals will move back to the centre is dodgy at best. Dutton isn't likely to try to soften his image and the rightwing echo chamber will lash him if he tries. The same sort of fork in the road occurred in the USA after Obama's 2 wins and the Republican Party released an Autopsy which suggested a move back to the centre for fear of losing non-white voters who will increasingly be a majority of voters. As we know, that never happened as Trump took the GOP to the hard right. And he won against Hillary. If the conservative wing of the Liberal Party sees that as a template, they'll rejoice that the Teals killed off the moderates. The big problem for them, though, is that Trump's playbook works over there because there's no compulsory voting and political control of the voting process allows for Gerrymanders and voter suppression.
There was some schadenfreude in watching Frydenberg lose his safe seat after he submitted totally to hard right control of his party. But it would probably have been far better for Australia if he'd held his seat and was able to return the Liberal Party its more moderate roots.
I had the misfortune of tuning into Sky News today and they were clearly running the Fox News line. They had the requisite blonde with long hair in an evening dress hosting with a brash young right-wing guy (classic Fox News) and these 2 geniuses argued that Scomo lost the election because he tried to placate various groups and by doing so he had lost his "authenticity". The blonde girl said she liked him being filmed at Evangelical churches as this was his authentic self. They both agreed that the next Liberal leader has to learn this lesson and not stray away from authenticity (i.e. has to be an uncompromisingly hard right wingnut). They then went on to credit the Scomo government with everything good in the world.
What I take from this is that the assumption the Liberals will move back to the centre is dodgy at best. Dutton isn't likely to try to soften his image and the rightwing echo chamber will lash him if he tries. The same sort of fork in the road occurred in the USA after Obama's 2 wins and the Republican Party released an Autopsy which suggested a move back to the centre for fear of losing non-white voters who will increasingly be a majority of voters. As we know, that never happened as Trump took the GOP to the hard right. And he won against Hillary. If the conservative wing of the Liberal Party sees that as a template, they'll rejoice that the Teals killed off the moderates. The big problem for them, though, is that Trump's playbook works over there because there's no compulsory voting and political control of the voting process allows for Gerrymanders and voter suppression.
There was some schadenfreude in watching Frydenberg lose his safe seat after he submitted totally to hard right control of his party. But it would probably have been far better for Australia if he'd held his seat and was able to return the Liberal Party its more moderate roots.