As an Australian that seems to be a depsessibgky high approval rating but then our most odious billionaire is MAGA and a big fan of the ONP so … no surprises I guess, just more bad news.
cross-posted from: https://piefed.ca/c/boycottus/p/796973/66-of-canadians-have-an-unfavourable-view-of-the-usa
Not wrong, but all over the world does not have compulsory voting (AU and Belgium only I think). For all we have some vociferous reactionary racist gobshites, it’s a small minority and we have a lot less of an apathy failure to vote problem to balance it. Add to that a high proportion of immigrants, a solidly left leaning younger demographic and Trump’s example and I don’t see much traction, no matter how much Murdoch media beats it’s drum. At worst they’ll become a very junior coalition member, which will likely do more harm than good to the right wing in the long run.
I’m not saying the following to argue, but to add caveats and challenge assumptions.
I see some other people treating compulsory voting as an anchor, but we’re seeing a prolonged shift away from the dominance of Coalition and Labor. We’re talking about a reactionary politician promoted by plenty of mainstream mass media outlets with astronomical funding - many casual apathetic forced-voters will be exposed to more of her populist policies and less of her terrible perspectives and Gina-service than we see. Especially if everyday people like us don’t talk to people about it.
Many immigrants will vote for One Nation. It sounds unintuitive, but there are plenty who openly support Hanson. They’ve already immigrated, and might trivialise the racist attitudes of the party in support of other gripes, especially if they feel association with Australia and see themselves accepted as “one of the good ones”. One Nation is a racist party, but as a whole, it’s selectively racist: they will back candidates from most non-Arab ethnicities and have elected immigrants [admittedly not the best example].
Yes, but that doesn’t outweigh the larger, solidly right-leaning older demographic. Unfortunately Wikipedia haven’t updated their table since 2016 and I cbf summing the numbers on the ABS population pyramid, so I’m happy to be contradicted.
Also consider that (judging by the first line of the ABS 2024 age/region summary plus my own assumption) younger populations are likely to be concentrated in cities, reducing the influence of a young vote on suburban and rural electoral seats.
And that’s been a useful tactic in dissuading ON prospectives, according to GetUp!, which to me also implies that plenty of people don’t already recognise the similarity of Trump’s USA and Pauline’s ON. It needs to be brought into the foreground and considered before it clicks.
So, my perspective is, we should be optimistic and confident, but we must not be complacent and passive. These points you make only work if politically-informed people share our knowledge with the apathetic. And this doesn’t have to be preachy or direct, even passive exposure and “didjyahearabout” conversations will accumulate.
I can get behind that. I certainly don’t intend to do nothing. ‘Oh, the Aussie Trump’ has passed my lips more than once.
You raise good points of which I am not unaware, although I’d suggest (technofuedalist controlled) social media is more a threat, and sadly more intractable, than Murdoch et.al. today (not sure what scope you meant by mass media).
One nation are polling higher than the major parties and she is rating highest as preferred prime minister. I expect it to be like reform, where they get more seats than they have ever had, but still not much. However, what’s shocking is how quickly they got that support, despite all their policies being anti their supporters. Except when you add racism. We have lots more racists than you think. America found that out the hard way. We’re on track for similar.