Are We Done Yet?

The Politics of I-Don't-Even-Know-What-Any-More

At the turn of this decade, politics in this country hit a kind of low note. It was deceptive because we simply thought that the low was about as low things would go. That is to say, at the first sign of waning polls, Julia Gillard marched in and removed Kevin Rudd from the office of Prime Minister. Which of course unleashed so much ill will in the electorate that it resulted in a hung Parliament for Julia Gillard who subsequently rushed to the polls. The rest of it is in the history books, but it bears repeating because for some reason we seem to be at a similar impasse.

The only exception I would make is that Tony Abbott has never so much been popular as grudgingly accepted by even those in the Liberal Party, and in a quick 16 months or so has exhausted the support of even his own party through his inability to govern. Predictably - and it was no great shakes predicting this - he has been an awful Prime Minister who has essentially mistaken his winning the election as a big mandate for him to do things that were not asked of the Coalition in government.

We won't go over the tragic decision of repealing the Carbon Pricing or the Mining Tax. but it is also their budget that has been nothing short of a disaster and 9months later is yet to be passed, by a decidedly hostile senate. Everything they've done has either been shit or a mess indiscernible from shit.  It has in most part, been a government of idiots, flailing like an angry mongoloid child having a tantrum in a supermarket aisle. The evident lack of self-knowledge amplified into a rejection of the world as it truly is, but the main protagonist incapable of understanding the intellect-gap and how short they fall.

But weeks after my last denunciation there are now serious murmurs amongst the Coalition ranks that Tony Abbott might have to go, or that Peta Credlin at least must go. Just as it came about with the ALP in 2013, the self-preservation instincts of backbenchers has kicked in. Yes, they really are muttering about who might replace Tony Abbott (who like Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard before him when deposed, is still in his first term). This time the conservative base is very upset with their own man because he flip-flops, and can't sell the message to the electorate.

This is quite noteworthy because it suggests the Coalition's conservative base actually thinks what Tony Abbott tried to push through in the budget and the negotiations since are good ideas worth pursuing. A rather frightening thought. There's basically a goodly portion of the Australian electorate that can't resist its inner fascist and freely let's reign their fear and loathing. There are a lot of delusional nutbars out there voting for the Coalition. That being the case, we have to surmise that Australia is a lot more fractured and diverse than ever before. The diversity includes many hues of righting nut-jobbery. Is it any surprise this 'diversity' gets reflected in the necessarily fractious and disagreeable Senate?

You have to feel a little bit for the social conservatives of this country because they're on the wrong side of history, but they have to be wedded to the economic hardline ideologues who are also changing this country in a such a way as to disadvantage them. They probably just want change to slow down and for things they took for granted - like being able to be homophobic, racist, class-prejudiced and xenophobic - to not disappear. It's a crappy position to take or be in, but they just want to keep the things that give them a sense of identity - like being able to be homophobic, racist, class-prejudiced and xenophobic - and keep being that way without being ridiculed; but alas history is moving away from that sort of thing. And so they rail against the "politically correct" 'elites' who live in urban centres, but their very own political partners are psychopaths who want to tear down most social institutions so that economically it resembles a game of Monopoly where each man/woman is on their own and winner takes all.

The changes being pushed by the Liberals are going to hurt the bush. It's no wonder Clive Palmer and Bob Katter can see an angle that slants differently to the National Party, and run with it to the extent that they have.

All the same, it's impossible to feel sorry for the Liberals who find themselves in the pickle of having believed their own bullshit (and not, say, climate science); they've now led themselves into a political cul de sac with a monarchist nut job ex-trainee-priest ideologue. That one, is all on them. This current phase in the electoral cycle where they have discovered that none of their ideas are any good and their leader is despised by the majority of Australians, is all of their own making. It makes for much Schadenfreude joy. The shoe really is firmly shoved on to the other foot now. If the defeat of Kevin Rudd in 2013 was inevitable, then so was this descent into the abyss of hostile public opinion. They got there through pursuing a single-minded political unreasonableness and denying basic reality as presented by science and economics. I wouldn't mind seeing them twist in the wind for a while longer for comedy value. They are such idiots.

Some  may say this is no laughing matter; I would contend the LNP Coalition Government is Laughing Matter itself. A pure, distilled essence of Stupid.

It would be curious to see if the Liberals replace Tony Abbott with anybody. I feel they likely won't do any such thing. This is because the Liberals tend not to swap leaders in Government; they tend to swap their leaders more often in Opposition. They didn't try to change mid-stream in the last year of the Howard government to Peter Costello, and they sure didn't change horses at the end of the Fraser government. You have to go all the way back to the post-Menzies era to see the Liberals swapping Prime Ministers and that sort of led to the rise of Gough Whitlam. I'm sure just the thought of that makes them leery.

If they don't replace Tony Abbott, they are likely looking at a one term government. If they do replace Tony Abbott with anybody (Bishop, Turnbull, a sack of catfood, it doesn't matter), they'll be reliving the ALP script. Whilst they are the best friends of the boardroom psychopaths, I do wonder whether they have the sort of gumption to be psychopaths themselves and replace Tony Abbott with a straight face. You know, channel the inner Mark Arbib, or for that matter their inner Bill Shorten.
Somehow I think that is not on the cards. We're going to be in for 18 more months of Tony Abbott as PM. So no, we're far from done yet.