[Peetwo]

Listen up Turdball & Short-one...

Excellent article courtesy of Chris Kenny from the Oz, that IMO nails the true story with the voter discontent with the political elite in the major parties... :

Politicians must learn to rediscover their faith in the voters

• Chris Kenny
  
• The Australian
  
• 12:00AM February 4, 2017
  

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That a political correction is taking place in Australia and other Western liberal democracies is undoubted. Even the political/media class recognises the obvious. But perhaps because the correction is largely directed at the political/media class, it misinterprets what is unfolding.

It is all about perceptions and perspective. The establishment politicians and their media clique think mainstream voters have changed — but in reality it is the voters who are pulling back on a runaway political class

Politicians of the Left have ­drifted away from the public on fundamental issues and the prevailing wisdom of media and academic voices creates the siren song luring many centrist and centre-right politicians away too.

In Europe, North America and Australia the political establishment has understated the importance of border security and national interest, overstated the role of supranational and multi­lateral bodies, and bowed to the whims of political correctness across issues such as education, immigration, gender, climate change and law and order.

Progressive voters have gone along for the ride but mainstream people aren’t so sure; they tend ­towards conservatism. Of late they have flocked to disruptive outsiders because the political ­establishment gave them no ­alternative.

Voters in last year’s US presidential contest weren’t given much of a choice. As Mark Steyn pointed out long before Donald Trump’s victory, they were being offered a choice between the continuation of a Clinton Democratic dynasty or a Bush Republican inheritance. Middle America confounded expectations by choosing a disrupter instead.

In Australia, after the overthrow of Tony Abbott, voters ended up with the leaders of both major parties who were deferential to global climate strictures, were unknown quantities on border protection and seemingly ­uncomfortable calling out the threat of Islamic terrorism.

There was little product differentiation — except between the political class preoccupations of gay marriage and climate change and mainstream concerns about national security and the cost of living.

Pauline Hanson’s extreme plan to ban Muslim immigration became a viable protest avenue for those dismayed that the political establishment couldn’t even utter the word Islamist. One ­Nation’s simplistic economic ­nationalism was a foil to major parties incap­able of reining in debt and deficits, and determined to ­increase power prices in order to meet meaningless agreements struck in Paris talkfests.

This is less about an emergent “redneck” class than a political class becoming so caught up in gesture and identity politics that it can’t voice the legitimate terrorism concerns of voters and has forgotten that while Australia can’t save the planet, it can prosper from cheap and abundant energy.

In the political/media class there is a tendency to condemn voters who espouse nationalism, climate scepticism, traditional marriage values, reduced immigration or strong border security. Yet these values are not rare among working suburban families. Indeed, it is not uncommon to hear members of the political ­establishment use “suburban values” as a derisory term. Only a couple of generations ago public debate saw suburbia as epitomising our egalitarian aspirations.

For most people it still does — and they vote.

The political class’s disdain for mainstream values was perfectly illustrated in comments made last year by Hillary Clinton to supporters in New York. These words probably did more than any others uttered by her or Trump to bar her from the White House.

“You know, to just be grossly generalistic,” said Clinton, “you could put half of Trump’s sup­porters into what I call the ­basket of deplorables. Right? The ­racist, sexist, homophobic, xeno­phobic, Islamophobic — you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.” This was a searing and accidental insight.

Not only did Clinton insult much of the population but she told them Trump was their champion.

Let us be under no illusions; the same dynamic is at play in Australia. Labor, Greens, some Liberal MPs and most of the Canberra press gallery talk about the effectiveness of dog-whistle politics, confirming their belief that mainstream voters are gullible, racist or xenophobic, and easily manipulated by ugly political messaging.

Rather than reassess their own policy adventurism — demolishing our border protection regime, inflating electricity prices through futile renewable gestures or continuing to spend wildly on borrowed money — they diagnose a shift in the electorate.

More likely the electorate is ­applying a handbrake to pull back the political class closer to reality.

Rhetoric proving this point permeates our national debate. This week on Radio National, for instance, Fran Kelly talked about Bill Shorten’s “direct pitch to people who feel they’ve been left ­behind”.

This tends to be the ­preferred narrative: it is the people who are wrong; not Shorten (or other MPs) who need to ­reconnect to mainstream common sense.

Alison Carabine continued Kelly’s riff: “Much of Shorten’s speech was devoted to the way in which people are so disengaged from politics and distrustful of ­politicians — hence the embrace of people like Donald Trump and Pauline Hanson — who very ­cleverly portray themselves as anti-politician. So restoring faith in the political system is a thres­hold challenge according to Bill Shorten; it’s really a challenge for both major parties, Fran, otherwise they are going to keep losing voter support to other parties and independents.”

Kelly and Carabine describe the same political disconnect I outline, only they place their faith in the political establishment — the major parties must restore the faith of voters in what they do. My diagnosis is the opposite; the major parties must rediscover their faith in the voters.

When Trump placed his ­nation’s interest at the pinnacle of his priorities in his inaugural ­address, commentators around the world found it grating — even alarming. “From this day forward, it’s going to be only America first, America first,” said Trump.

Yet this is the least voters would expect from the leader of a sovereign state. That a leader could win such plaudits — and such criticism — for stating such a fundamental precept shows how far we have strayed.

This is why Trump was elected. This is why the Brexit vote succeeded. Voters have a visceral comprehension of the primacy of the sovereign state in a way too many of their uppity politicians have forgotten.

Who could say when watching Barack Obama or Kevin Rudd at global summits that they were ­unambiguously placing their ­nation’s interests above their ­desire for multilateral approval?

In Brussels and at UN headquarters in New York, politicians are enticed relentlessly away from practical, sovereign issues into a world of global gestures. So distorted is this world that Australia can be criticised by UN human rights bodies whose members ­include nations like Saudi Arabia, China or even Libya.

The moral equivalence and ­deformed posturing that infects this world feeds back into domestic politics, so that Abbott is decried as a misogynist for looking at his watch while feminists defend the burka and niqab as ­expressions of women’s rights.

Mainstream voters see all this happening and they want it to stop. If major parties won’t listen to them, they will vote for others — however unpalatable — who are prepared to expose these ­absurdly cosy and deeply idiotic indulgences.

Understanding this is the central challenge in contemporary politics. Demonising those who vote for One Nation or shouting down arguments from the likes of conservative senator Cory Bernardi will only entrench the trend away from major parties.

Malcolm Turnbull is not a hapless victim caught between the Labor Party and a Trumpian/Hansonist wedge. Rather, the ­ascendancy of Trump and Hanson is a reminder that he must ­embrace core values ahead of fashionable causes.

The prospects of disruption and dysfunction on the conservative side of politics are so high now that the process might be irreversible. But this has not simply happened to the Coalition; it is the result of choices it has made.

It can only retain and win back conservatives by reflecting their values. It might start by co-operating with One Nation on preferences. Or it can stay on course for troubled waters.

Classic 'nail in head' - "..This week on Radio National, for instance, Fran Kelly talked about Bill Shorten’s “direct pitch to people who feel they’ve been left ­behind”.

This tends to be the ­preferred narrative: it is the people who are wrong; not Shorten (or other MPs) who need to ­reconnect to mainstream common sense..."

Until pollywaffle parasites like the alleged rapist, philanderer, union suck hole and two time PM backstabbing Shorten, stop blaming us 'disaffected' voters for their electoral woes then they're going to find themselves facing a growing population of disgruntled taxpayer/voters -




MTF...