When I was working on a cruise ship, a noticeboard poster said it all: “Please remember that Americans consider it acceptable to brag about their kids. Australians do not.”
Oh, Hanson is absolutely self-obsessed. So much so that she had herself put in her party’ constitution as party leader for life with the right to determine her successor.
I wouldn’t class Katter or Lambie as Trumpian, but specifically Katter is very self-obsessed. In general though he is, despite his deeply irritating shtick*, fairly harmless and benign.
Palmer may not have had straight-up electoral success - but he has successfully manipulated public opinion and influenced election outcomes by injecting himself along with huge amounts of money into the campaign cycle and blasting his positions out there. We can largely thank him for the Coalition winning the 2019 election which they themselves absolutely expected to lose. The thing about Palmer is figuring out what his goals are, and aside from making money, those goals thus far have been focused around either preventing a Labor government, or preventing parts of Labor’s agenda. However, if those goals ever change towards getting more political power, then Palmer will be able to spend a lot of money to achieve his goals.
One could argue that key reasons for Australian electoral outcomes being fairly benign are the preferential voting system (as opposed to first past the post in the US) and compulsory elections - high voter turnout is generally recognised to prevent swings towards the extreme. In the US, 60% voter turnout is considered high, whereas here the turnout is generally north of 90%.
*By shtick, I mean his general ‘oh, don’t mind me, I’m just a funny old dodderer’ demeanour, from which he can pivot in half a second flat to become really toxic and aggressive
Oh, Hanson is absolutely self-obsessed. So much so that she had herself put in her party’ constitution as party leader for life with the right to determine her successor.
I wouldn’t class Katter or Lambie as Trumpian, but specifically Katter is very self-obsessed. In general though he is, despite his deeply irritating shtick*, fairly harmless and benign.
Palmer may not have had straight-up electoral success - but he has successfully manipulated public opinion and influenced election outcomes by injecting himself along with huge amounts of money into the campaign cycle and blasting his positions out there. We can largely thank him for the Coalition winning the 2019 election which they themselves absolutely expected to lose. The thing about Palmer is figuring out what his goals are, and aside from making money, those goals thus far have been focused around either preventing a Labor government, or preventing parts of Labor’s agenda. However, if those goals ever change towards getting more political power, then Palmer will be able to spend a lot of money to achieve his goals.
One could argue that key reasons for Australian electoral outcomes being fairly benign are the preferential voting system (as opposed to first past the post in the US) and compulsory elections - high voter turnout is generally recognised to prevent swings towards the extreme. In the US, 60% voter turnout is considered high, whereas here the turnout is generally north of 90%.
*By shtick, I mean his general ‘oh, don’t mind me, I’m just a funny old dodderer’ demeanour, from which he can pivot in half a second flat to become really toxic and aggressive
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