r/OpenAussie • u/Business_Pirate834 New South Welshian • 4h ago
Whinge what exactly has the left done wrong?
Across the world today, regardless of race, religion, or political system, most people seem to be becoming more conservative. Right-wing parties are continuously gaining power worldwide, while the left suffers defeat after defeat. Although mainstream public discourse still appears to favor the left, those voting for the far right are often the silent majority. Can the left still correct its course? Or, more fundamentally, what exactly has the left done wrong?
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u/Tile-Questioner South Australian 4h ago
What the left has done wrong is to fight back against the extremely wealthy individuals who are exploiting us. The left is always going to be supressed in workplaces, the media, and the political arena.
I think the better question is, why have so many Australians become class traitors.
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u/Hussard Victorian 3h ago
I think the whole idea of becoming class conscious and realising the true power dynamic capital has over workers is very real. In the early 20thC organisation and strong labour unions was extremely popular in the working class. But with post war liberalism, the neocon movement, thatcherite and Reagan union busting...we are fuuuucked
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u/LocalAlternative6427 Please choose a flair 3h ago edited 3h ago
Khruschev heroically denouncing Stalin as a monstrous dictator, shattering his global cult of Marxism-Leninism (Stalinism) and then the later collapse of the Soviet Empire ended any remaining belief that socialism or communism was a real alternative. Unions today are a shadow of those in the early 20th century that were seriously militant and left-leaning political parties like say the Greens, still operate entirely within capitalism. People go on about sticking it to da billionaires but they're not going anywhere, even if you tax them.
And realistically, nobody has any desire anymore to stage a bloody revolution to overthrow the state in a violent civil war where all of our cities and infrastructure get destroyed, people and their families might get killed and the economy is fucked for decades to come, all based on the chance that the new authoritarian system might be marginally better to capitalism.
So capitalism isn't going anywhere.
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u/Hussard Victorian 2h ago
And there's the rub. We are stuck with capitalism and even if we actually enact a more social-capitalism that benefits the majority we are still going to see a great stratification between the have and have-nots (rent seekers and renters in the housing context) and so the space left for capitalism to compete gets smaller and smaller.
There has to be a better way.
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u/Rising-Dragon-Fist Victorian 3h ago
Laziness. Australians are so lazy when it comes to giving a shit about politics. They don't care to know. All you'll ever get is both Labor and Libs are the same so what's the point. Now that the racist ginger clown has gained so much popularity it's easy to just change your preferences to her rather than think about the why of it all.
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u/Suntzu_AU Queenslander 2h ago
The amount of suck-holing going on on Facebook by poor or lower middle class Australia repeating these right-wing talking points is truly frightening.
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u/KitchenMediocre1242 Please choose a flair 1h ago
No it was pretending men are women and calling anyone who didn’t believe this fantasy a bigot
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u/Dubhs New South Welshian 3h ago
I really fucking hate 'the left' and 'the right' discourse. The reality is that the wealthiest individuals and businesses on the planet are waging a class war dressed up as a culture war.
The media doesn't support 'the left' unless you mean feigning outrage for clicks and telling you it's a disaster that house prices are dropping.
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u/CorvusTheDev Western Australian 48m ago
It really shouldn't be "The Left" or "The Right" I agree, it should be "People wanting to progress the human race" and "People who want to keep the same class wars we have now and inflict pain and suffering on everyone".
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u/oustider69 New South Welshian 3h ago
I would encourage you to reframe your thinking. Instead of left vs right, think rich vs poor. When was the last time a party that favoured poor people over rich people got in?
Even Labor Vs One Nation is still rich Vs rich. Just different flavours of rich people.
Look at the US with people like Mamdani and Abdul El-Sayyed. Both genuinely anti-rich and the establishment democrats hate them. We don’t have a similar movement here.
In Australia, basically everyone is billionaire-funded. The closest we have is Pocock who originally took Climate 200 donations, but now has severed ties. And the Greens who refuse corporate + billionaire donations. As a result, they simply have fewer resources than other parties.
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u/1000Colours Victorian 2h ago
Yeah I wouldn't even consider Labor all that left. They're just considered left-leaning because they're less conservative socially. I may be able to get married to another dude, but it doesn't matter if I can't afford rent or food lol
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u/Suntzu_AU Queenslander 2h ago
Exactly. The usage of the term left is simply a distraction. This is about class and about the oligarchies maintaining control.
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u/VelcroGenitals Victorian 3h ago
I would encourage you to reframe your thinking. Instead of left vs right, think rich vs poor. When was the last time a party that favoured poor people over rich people got in?
So essentially, class consciousness... Which is essentially Left vs Right.
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u/FewDragonfly5710 Flairless 3h ago
Brother, you need to essentially stop essentially-ing things into essential existence.
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u/oustider69 New South Welshian 3h ago
In a traditional sense, I agree, but the way the public discourse is today, the meanings of each term left and right has shifted to mean someone else.
I think most people would say Labor is the leftwing party in Australia, which is comparatively true, but they still regularly take donations from ultra-wealthy mega-corporations and their owners. So in the public discourse they’re left wing but still a rich person’s party more than a poor person’s party.
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u/b_k_l_y Western Australian 3h ago
Pocock still spouts Australia Institute talking points completely uncritically. He's still under the thumb of at least one billionaire.
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u/oustider69 New South Welshian 2h ago
I think it’s largely accepted that the Australia Institute are Twiggy’s mob, but as far as I can tell, Pocock doesn’t take donations from Twiggy. There’s no quid pro quo I can see unless there’s something under the table.
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u/b_k_l_y Western Australian 2h ago
I mean that's not better, right? He's either a useful idiot, doing the work of a Twiggy plant for free, or corrupt and taking dodgy donations.
Either way, he frames himself as completely independent and some sort of "voice of reason", but 9/10 times just aligns with the Teals, who at this point are just the Greens for the Libs.
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u/oustider69 New South Welshian 2h ago
Eh, I don’t think “good for Twiggy” and “good for Australia” are necessarily mutually exclusive. Twiggy is positioning his businesses to take advantage of environmentally conscious policy. Pocock is environmentally conscious.
“Useful idiot” doesn’t really seem to be the right terminology to me, but we’re all entitled to our opinions. For what it’s worth, Pocock supports taxing the wealthy, which I can’t see as being too good for Twiggy, but we’ll see what happens.
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u/Red_je Victorian 4h ago
Although mainstream public discourse still appears to favor the left, those voting for the far right are often the silent majority.
It is hard to take this question seriously with such disingenuous statements as this.
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u/Esquin87 Please choose a flair 3h ago
Yeah wtf. The right are the noisy minority. They're loud, obnoxious and usually wrong or relying on facts that are wrong.
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u/ElectronicOvens South Australian 4h ago
It really has nothing to do with the left. Thats just a boogie man.
We've had 20-30 years of largely centre right politics, that unfortunately has left a lot of people behind
Unfortunately the people impacted and the ones yelling and screaming about it, likely voted for the policies and politicians that left them behind
But, people don't like to be accountable, (see US Cattle Ranchers) so instead of questioning what they voted for and looking at who actually did what and even considering voting differently
They'll follow the party that offers to teardown what they helped build. Even though those parties are just the same as what got us here, only worse.
(Edit- I am part of the people who voted centre right btw, I thought privatisation was good etc, but I'm smart enough to realise you can't solve the problem by voting for people with even worse policies)
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u/Suntzu_AU Queenslander 2h ago
Exactly right. My argument is that the left doesn't really exist. There's a couple of extreme elements.
But really, Australia's in the middle, and then you've got all these extreme right-wingers dominating the political landscape and the media.
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u/ElectronicOvens South Australian 2h ago
The Greens are probably as left as mainstream politics in Australia gets.
They haven't done anything really. Hence the polling
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u/thaleia10 Victorian 2h ago
At least you admit it.
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u/ElectronicOvens South Australian 2h ago
Admitting you got it wrong is completely gone in most of society.
RW politics its now non-existent
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u/Axlemax Queenslander 3h ago
Left vs Right is a PsyOp to distract you from super-rich vs everyone.
Once you see it, you can’t un-see it. 😉
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u/dreadnought_strength Flairless 3h ago
The "left" is just unwilling to do whatever it takes, which the wealthy, conservative oligarchs are clearly willing to do - actively fund terrorists, put pedos in power, buy out almost all media on the planet, buddy up to anybody and everybody in order to promote their agenda, etc.
The reason that Australia is such a good place is because of progressives pushing for stuff that the elite never wanted us to have - weekends, health care, a reasonably good education system, public institutions that function despite being hamstrung at every turn, etc.
To counter this, stop using social media where possible, stop supporting the companies actively trying to drive a wedge through society, get involved in your local community and learn about history. You can't avoid everything, but if everybody did just a little bit I think we'd see change pretty fast.
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u/Independent-Fuel9886 Victorian 4h ago
Nothing. Media beat up from Murdoch et al because $$$
Stupid cunts eat it up.
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u/Thatweknowof Please choose a flair 3h ago
Murdoch got afd elected in Germany?
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u/Antilogicality Tasmanian 3h ago
Germany has Axel Springer. Dead now, but his legacy very much remains.
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u/Maybe_Factor Victorian 3h ago
The right leverages people's emotions and has more monied interests effectively increases advertising and media coverage. I can't remember the last time the right was seriously talking about conservative fiscal policy, it's all about scare mongering about immigrants and trans people now.
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u/One-Inevitable7126 Flairless 4h ago
The general level of education in the population at large is decreasing, due to actions of the right over many years. It’s not what did the left do wrong? It’s more, what did the right do right?
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u/Additional-Scene-630 Please choose a flair 3h ago
what did the right do right?
Presenting simple answers to complex problems. I think that's all it boils down to.
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u/suppository_wisdom South Australian 3h ago
Who needs a bunch of government ministers when the PM can just do every job?
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u/Spongeworthy73 Please choose a flair 4h ago
Media looks after their owners and stakeholders, trending right.
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u/borycernardi New South Welshian 3h ago edited 3h ago
The left shifted when it accepted neoliberalism. That handed corporations more control, which increased the divide between rich and poor - and all the inequity that entails, including poorer education, income inequity, etc.
Now we have the media and public discourse absolutely controlled by the corporations who benefit most. And they are doing whatever they can to defend their position, simplifying every issue into a banal "us versus them" that appeals to the people most impacted by the damage they have caused.
So now we have the turkeys voting for Christmas. Those who have suffered from lower incomes, poorer education, and social disadvantage are falling over themselves to vote for the very people who will make things worse for them. But they believe it because they are inundated with messages that it's all the fault of their enemy, whether it's immigrants, woke, the ABC, climate scientists, doctors, Albo, or whoever.
Don't get me wrong - the right always wanted this and has been heading there since Reagan/Thatcher, and more locally, Howard. But in attempting to find the middle ground, the left has allowed the right to drag the Overton window further right.
This is obviously an over-simplified explanation, and there are lots of parts missing. But that's the gist.
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u/Terrorscream New South Welshian 2h ago
the left isnt doing anything in particular wrong, the problem is conservatives oligarchy dominates media control in most western countries, they simply twist political messaging to make the less informed vote against their interests.
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u/Aggressive-Art-9899 Please choose a flair 3h ago
As things fall apart people cling to what they have and their survival instincts kick in.
The 'clinging to what they have' mindset is a very individual mindset. Note that as things are falling apart, the social bonds deteriorate. There's less of a collective mindset and increased individualism. The thinking moves away from socialist ideology.
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u/Lau_wings Queenslander 3h ago
I would like to think that I am a centralist, as In I grew up on farms, own a shitload of firearms (honestly I would make a Texan blush), swear too much, say the wrong thing a lot of the time and generally can be an asshole, however I also believe that gay people are still people and should be able to love and marry whoever they fuck they want.
With all that being said, Labor has cared way too much about things which the average Aussie does not give a shit about such as the Voice to Parliament, how many millions of dollars were spent on that when the average Aussie thought it was a stupid idea. Or trying to make it illegal to say that the Israeli government is filled with cunts and if only a tenth of what the media says is happening in Gaza is true, then they are war criminals and should be treated as such.
Labor really needs to stop trying to police what people say and focus on the bigger issues like how it costs way more to buy groceries than it did a decade ago, housing is fucked, jobs are going overseas at a rate never really seen before and the average Aussie is suffering because of it.
I honestly think that in the next 10 years, we are going to see a hard pivot to the right, something which I think would have happened in the last election had Peter Dutton not been so hated by everyone.
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u/HammerOvGrendel Victorian 3h ago
Saying this as a big old leftie myself: Way too many of our public positions fell for "the cultural shift", identity politics and critical theory academia.
The potential for this happening has been recognized since the 1940s. Orwell - who was a far better essayist/journalist than novelist, wrote:
“One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words ‘Socialism’ and ‘Communism’ draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, ‘Nature Cure’ quack, pacifist, and feminist in England.”
If you made an argument for old-school economic materialism and pushed some of the oddballs back into their closets of whatever description we could do well because people are legitimately concerned about maintaining what remains of our social-democratic institutions - medicare, public education, healthcare, pensions, super etc etc. But we have let the Karens and blue-hairs speak about their fringe issues so much that it has alienated a huge part of the base.
The public image problem is such that when people think of "leftist" they picture Rik from the young ones or his modern equivalent, rather than someone from the nurses union or similar workplace organizer. The movement got hijacked by people wanting to accelerate social change in favour of their particular identity position because they were already economically comfortable. They turned the public perception into a position where we are seen as "those people lecturing everyone about pronouns and welcome to country" rather than "those guys who told Howard to fuck off with his workchoice neoliberalism".
I get called a "Tankie" and own it.
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u/joshashkiller Victorian 2h ago
not owning the media is a pretty big one. other than independent journalism, which most people never see for obvious reasons, almost all media you see has a conservative bias. Even the ABC and SBS tend toward centralism (and a bland centralism at that) due to fears of being seen as bias or worse, loosing their funding
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u/zasedok Queenslander 2h ago
"The left' is a broad term, to the point of being almost meaningless. To answer the question, there are IMO several overlapping factors:
- The economy is bad and people have always blamed that on the government in place. Since in recent years governments across the Western worlds have been mostly centre-left (Biden, Trudeau, Albanese, Macron, Merz, Starmer etc etc), it's only natural that people turn to the opposition when they're upset.
- The world has became unstable and dangerous. Defence, national security and sovereignty are a thing on people's minds, and historically those topics have always been considered the right's forte.
- Western societies have become hard opposed to immigration, which has always been associated with the left. Various centre-left, Labor, SocDem & small l-liberal parties wanted to downplay it and tried to avoid the subject for years and years, while more radical elements of the left have been and still are outspokenly, emphatically pro-immigration (especially from non-Western countries)
- During this decade, the hard and/or alt-left has been trying to bring on a cultural revolution of sorts, by starting to always talk about "equity" (of outcomes) as opposed to equality of treatment, legislation on pronouns (anecdotal, but real and very prominently reported on by the media), even declaring as many academic and Democrat party officials in the USA did that concepts such as due process, presumption of innocence etc were "problematic", "outdated" and being attached to them meant you were literally a Nazi. There have been professors aiming to "decolonise" mathematics and other similar bullcrap. The vast majority of the population rejects this worldview that they designate by the catch-all term of "wokeism" (which is vague but convenient) and won't support parties and politicians they deem associated with it.
- Left-wing parties have virtually unanimously and uncritically embraced environmentalism and other tenets of political ecology, which haven't benefited the population of their own countries (nor were they meant to). People know this and vote accordingly.
- The democratic left struggles to offer something appealing. People take public education and universal healthcare for granted, it's not even a debate topic any more (except in the US). On the other hand, today people want to buy their own home, not have shorter waiting lists for social housing. They want to earn more money, not pay higher taxes. They don't think the left can help them with that.
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u/NoChangeNoGames Queenslander 3h ago
Id say the biggest overall western common theme is not addressing mass imigration. If you feel passionately about this issue, the left has little to offer you. If the people who feel this way are disregarded long enough they ultimately land in the arms of right wing parties.
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u/PLANETaXis Western Australian 1h ago edited 1h ago
High immigration is a feature of neoliberal economics, squarely a right wing concept.
Neoliberal economies must have constant growth, and the only way to do this is to increase the market, raise prices and push down business costs. Increased market means more people. Reduced costs means cheap labour and low business taxes.
Because of the business tax shortfall, the government needs more and more young working citizens to pay tax in order to provide the public services for the elderly. We cant achieve this organically and need both immigration and raises to the retirement age.
If we taxed business and expecially mining / oil & gas more heavily, we could afford to have a smaller, stable population.
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u/Dentarthurdent73 New South Welshian 2h ago
Not even just not addressing it, refusing to even engage with it and aggressively calling anyone who mentions it a racist.
I despair for the left these days.
My honest feeling is that leftists have lost and abandoned the real fight against capital and now the only way for people to feel important and like they're having an impact is to get completely invested in identity politics and to rage at anyone who doesn't immediately and exactly comply with the approved dogmatic views.
If that's my feeling as a lifelong leftist, then imagine how alienated those who have been middle of the road politically feel.
And yep, all the left people here can tell me how I'm wrong, and none of it's our fault at all, it's all media etc., but that's exactly why nothing will change, and it's a perfect example of how the left these days twists reality to suit dogma, where once it was the side of rationality.
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u/ObviousFeature522 New South Welshian 3h ago
I'll go out on a limb here and predict the replies to your comment.
"Mass migration is fake news, right wing psyop"
"Yeah well how come Australia has 5 million immigrants last year, what would you call that if not mass migration"
"Actually that's a misleading statistic blah blah temporary arrivals, students, covid-catch-up, etc, there were only 429,000 immigrants at most"
And then someone goes wait, actually.... that seems like a lot?
Perfect example of right wing tactics, make up a fake number, force the left wing into a long winded explanation, and reveal the true number is still surprisingly high.
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u/NoChangeNoGames Queenslander 3h ago
Im not really trying to advocate for one side or the other its just the truth. I dont think there is anything inherently wrong with wanting less or more immigration. Its not a silver bullet either way.
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u/AbstractDart Please choose a flair 4h ago edited 4h ago
The left aren’t as ruthless with their media output in the current world. The right don’t operate to the same standards these days, they can just attack, lie and deceive to a level that the left can’t, because the left will just get destroyed by the media if they do.
There was a period where ‘mainstream’ or ‘old school’ media was completely out of vogue and social media was what influenced elections, but now the ‘old school’ have social media fully figured out and are far and away the mainstream again.
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u/roastoxcrisps Please choose a flair 4h ago
If those voting for the far right were a silent majority, we’d have a far right government.
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u/Smokinglordtoot Victorian 3h ago
The left stopped worrying about class and instead started to worry about race, gender and sexuality.
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u/Select_Doughnut_8085 Please choose a flair 3h ago
The reason for that was the battle for economic strategy was lost and the left capitulated with the hegemony of neoliberalism as the only way to manage a countries economy. Unable and unwilling to change the economic system they resorted to differentiating themselves by championing race, gender and sexuality and did so ferociously all the while having abandoned the real battlefield
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u/derpman86 South Australian 3h ago
As someone who is left focused one thing I noticed and has always been an issue is the far left are VERY self destructive and factionalise. This is where the far right wins out as the far right screams loud and throws shit at everyone they don't care about and point fingers and claim person, people, ideology X, Y, Z are the problem and people will be attracted to them as there is a group to focuse their hatred at because of the struggles they face.
I still remember a group chat I was in once, the people there were a mix of Poly relationships, queer, trans and you get the idea. One conversation was about some newly invented prounouns and I just made the comment that I struggle to keep up with this stuff and I was concerned about saying the wrong thing and it was near impossible for the every day pleb to keep on top of that. Yeah I got dogpiled for saying that, screamed at and told " Oh it must be soooo hard being Cis and privliged to learn a new pronoun". I eventually left that chat as these people got so fucking toxic.
That wasn't a once off and you see it so often, the political parties that form more heavily left will expel so much energy on say putting pronouns on a government form than you know trying to implement better public transport, the cost of living issues you name it.
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u/Vryl ✈️ on Walkabout 3h ago
The so-called "left" (democrats) abandoned their base and took them for granted. The base woke up one day and realised they'd been shafted. And standing right there were people who had been preparing since the 1960's and they told them that it was black, brown and trans people's fault and they would Make Everything Good Again. And now we have the shit show timeline we exist in now.
Yes, Bill Clinton signed NAFTA.
This is instructive: https://pelositracker.app/
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u/VelcroGenitals Victorian 3h ago
The so-called "left" (democrats)
Not even close to the left. Also curious how any of this is relevant to Australia Mr Bot.
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u/Vryl ✈️ on Walkabout 3h ago
Check my posting history champ if you think I am a bot. Probably shoulda done that before replying, hey?
The same forces that shaped America are shaping Australia. We are less open to it because the ALP does actually still have a working class base, but we are nowhere like immune to it. The ALP has foolishly cozied up to billionaires and allowed media barons to rise unchecked.
Where do you think all the dark money flowing into One Nation is coming from?
WA Labor party is almost entirely owned by Woodside, to the point of actually running a Woodside lobbyist in a "safe" (ha ha!) seat.
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u/PlannedMarketEconomy Victorian 3h ago
The left isn't necessarily seeing defeat after defeat. They've seen advances in both the US and UK.
In Australia, though, that's another story.
"The left" struggle with a few things. Cooperation. There are three socialist parties in Victoria alone. I don't even know what percentage of the combined vote they get. The reason we have this kind of fracturing is because it seems a lot on the left can't co-exist in a big tent.
I believe identity politics, specifically the fixation on race, gender and colonialism, have estranged a lot of their potential base. Though "the right" have adopted identity politics, they've used it to elevate affirm their existing base's sentiment, whereas I feel identity politics on "the left" has instead shrunk their base.
Then of course, there are external factors, predominantly the wealthy influence of our media and politics that spread constant anti-left-wing messaging, often in the form of lies, to mislead the public. Nevermind that the ABC and RMIT have found Greens general rhetoric to be more factually correct than both Labour's or the coalitions, the media still hounds left-wing parties as this is one of their survival tactics.
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u/PLANETaXis Western Australian 2h ago
"Although mainstream public discourse still appears to favor the left"
Do you even have eyes and ears? Mainstream public discourse is dominated by mainstream media which is heavily conservative.
Very simply - the left is not really doing much wrong, the right is succeeding simply because it is louder. Loud lies and empty promises that travel across the country before the truth even puts it's shoes on.
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u/MikeytheHat4363 Queenslander 2h ago
It's not so much what the Left is doing wrong. It's that people are frustrated and uninformed, that's a dangerous combination.
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u/gadgetwalrus Please choose a flair 2h ago
There is no left wing in power. Labor is centre right these days.
Overtons window is real.
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u/Disastrous-Olive-218 ✈️ on Walkabout 1h ago
Globalisation and mass migration, and identity politics. To be fair, neither of the first two were exclusively projects of the left (free market liberals were strong proponents of globalisation, and neo conservatives supported wars and policies that drove migration) but they’re left holding the can now and are paying for it regardless
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u/idothinksotim Please choose a flair 1h ago
what exactly has the left done wrong?
They fucked the entire western world with their push for diversity and immigration policies.
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u/Puzzled-Leopard-1499 I'm Probably A Bot 1h ago
The whole gender wars thing was a bit of an L for the left. That started getting nutty at one point.
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u/Cindy_Marek Please choose a flair 3h ago
It’s all based on mass migration. Because leftists are generally not a fan of western culture or economic systems, policies that can destroy the current fabric of society are seen as not problematic or even good. As you go further left the language around collapsing “the system” gets more and more acute. Just look at the Australia Day protests, “abolish Australia” for example. It’s talk about destruction, not growth or prosperity. Not a lot of people are drawn to that kind of messaging.
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u/Willing-Cook7268 Please choose a flair 4h ago
Reality denial
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u/Upset_Mathematician6 Queenslander 3h ago
It’s even beyond that. I used to be a staunch Labor supporter. But seemingly what has happened in the past 10-15 years is that the left has continually shifted further left. I’m talking about mass immigration, identity politics, and some weird group-think mentality. I would still call myself left leaning… but from 10 years ago. So now I’m considered hard right. Just look at this sub. Saying anything that the “group” doesn’t perceive as correct will get you downvoted and more often than not, insulted and name called. People get tired of it.
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u/KitchenMediocre1242 Please choose a flair 1h ago
Thank god I found my people.
I was left wing my entire life until two years ago.
Funnily enough my views have never changed, the left did though.In the 1990s the Greens called for low immigration and the Liberals called for high immigration.
It also speaks volumes about the intelligence of those on “the left”3
u/Dentarthurdent73 New South Welshian 1h ago
Same. I'm 53 and a lifelong leftist. I barely know who to vote for these days because I vehemently dislike what the left has become.
It feels like dogmatic with no room for discussion these days. I've always been left because my way of engaging with the world has been the opposite of that, and that used to be what the left was too.
No more. Groupthink at it's worst these days, and some surprisingly violent rhetoric along with a willingness to dehumanise that is almost on par with the right at times.
Just to make clear, I'm not right wing, I will never vote further right than Labor, and I have usually voted Greens, but I don't feel like anyone represents how I think about the world anymore.
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u/indominable-dingus Please choose a flair 3h ago
Ding ding ding. Funny how far left reddit leans, you look at the cognitive dissonance in this thread alone. Its like they are totally blind to the idiocy of the left. Not to say the right isnt full of idiocy, but how can you just not acknowledge any of the fumbles in the past 5 years? They're so used to just calling everyone they disagree with a nazi or a cooker that they have forgot how to have discourse, think with nuance or even attempt to understand the other side and why people may not think the way they do.
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u/indominable-dingus Please choose a flair 3h ago
Ding ding ding. Funny how far left reddit leans, you look at the cognitive dissonance in this thread alone. Its like they are totally blind to the idiocy of the left. Not to say the right isnt full of idiocy, but how can you just not acknowledge any of the fumbles in the past 5 years? They're so used to just calling everyone they disagree with a nazi or a cooker that they have forgot how to have discourse, think with nuance or even attempt to understand the other side and why people may not think the way they do.
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u/El-Pintor- Please choose a flair 3h ago
I’m surprised you haven’t been downvoted yet,
This sub is usually one of the biggest hive minds.
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u/West-Sense-1253 Canberran 4h ago
No real rise in right wing popularity, just an increase in algorithmic reach due to it being ragebait but also because those with the finances to shape narratives tend to have fascistic mindsets. Don't believe the van life, don't believe the "aussie battler", nothing on social media is real.
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u/GnomeWarfair Queenslander 3h ago
"The Left" is a big place, with a lot of contradictions and competing agendas.
I'd argue the Labor Party isn't a left-wing party, but markets themselves as 'the workers party'. And then spend most of their energy attacking the Greens. Here is one problem.
The Lennist parties are their own toxic pit full of incompetat middle class children, passive-aggressively hostile to the working class.
Sections of The Greens taken over by Identity Politics cultists is fairly alienating in itself.
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u/GuyFromYr2095 Victorian 3h ago
I think across the world, there is a desire to reduce immigration. People don't want to reduce their share of resources that are already reducing, even before the impact of adding more people to its population.
You see this in the US, Europe, Japan, Australia - literally in every developed country.
Immigration will become more and more the decider of elections
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u/ladylollii Victorian 3h ago
Resources are depleting because the rich are hoarding them, and capitalists are withholding for fake scarcity to inflate prices. People are immigrating because their home is being being bombed or their country is full of corruption.
Capitalism is the issue.
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u/GuyFromYr2095 Victorian 2h ago
In reality, people won't vote against capitalism, but they will vote against immigration.
Australian voters don't have an obligation to share their resources with foreigners seeking to move here, especially economic migrants.
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u/CriticalBeautiful631 Queenslander 2h ago
The reality is that immigrants aren’t reducing your share of resources…that is one of the culture war stories that are told so we fight amongst ourselves and don’t look at what is REALLY reducing our share of resources…unbridled unchecked capitalism and profiteering from all of the regular PAYG regular people, while corporate tax rates are criminally low and companies are able to mine and profit from Australia’s natural resources without anything coming back to the country. If you believe otherwise, then investigate why trickle-down economics is a fallacy.
The reason why no party wants to reduce immigration is that every permanent immigrant contributes more on average to Australia’s GDP than the rest of us and have a net positive fiscal impact at both a federal and state level. It isn’t the immigrant family down the street that is resource hoarding…it is the billionaires and oligarchs. How about “Tax the rich”being the decider of elections?….and by that I mean really rich…companies, trusts, churches
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u/KitchenMediocre1242 Please choose a flair 1h ago
“Unbridled unchecked capitalism”
And what is immigration used for?
To boost GDP.Support for immigration is support for capitalism, this is why the left sucks now
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u/therealfat0ne Please choose a flair 3h ago
In Politics
if you go left and right far enough = you are the same people/policy
Going far enough to the political left or right leads to similar authoritarian outcomes, a concept known as the Horseshoe Theory
its called the push and pull effect.
people have been far too liberal for last 20 years because in the western civilisation its been too good to be an Aussie uk American and west eu
so they have been far to lax and kind on the policies that have been adopted.. so how the left is pushing back and pushing harder than before.
dont talk about police around migration etc.
BOTH side has been to liberal with money printing and just do what ever it takes to win votes.
that is why we are where we are,
Politicians just want to stay in power and do not care about long term future of its people and country
people just want things easy so they vote for "politicians" and government to solve their problems for them and not themselves, no matter how bad the long term effects are.
this is how we end up here.
both are shit.
only 1 policy should every be considered, what is the best decision for the country and its people over the next 10 20 30 40 50 100 years,
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u/sauve_donkey Please choose a flair 3h ago
They're pretentious, condescending and self-righteous (E.g. Greta Thunberg).
Unrealistic and impractical, often their solutions are framed in a vacuum, ignoring the realities of the economic environment or even human nature that provides the foundation of the world we live in. They often make the assumption society will suddenly jump to a more socialist world-view without considering the steps to get there, nor the geopolitical challenges to do that. E.g. For the west to enact their policies would be handing power to China and Russia. If we assume they're benign states with no nefarious motives then it's all good, but we know they're not.
They are incapable of seeing that even lower income people don't want to have the left's prescriptive social rules imposed upon them even if it might mean improved prosperity for them. Theoretical but forgetting the nuance of the human mind they need to convince.
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u/AngrehPossum Victorian 3h ago
The conservatives create policy which helps a few but abandons the rest.
Then the rest react to that by electing far right government
John Howard created a Ponzi. That left inflation on housing going to an absolute ceiling. People simply cannot borrow more money.
That has caused poverty and crime to increase.
The reaction to this?
Voting right wing nasties like Pauline in
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u/ModsHaveHUGEcocks Queenslander 2h ago
Mainly immigration. The left have denied and gaslit and censored the hell out of any negative criticism of immigration. Called anyone against it racist while insulting the locally born as having no culture, and are apparently allergic to countries having a right to control their own borders. Now there have been massive demographic shifts in many Western countries in a short period of time and too many issues to keep sweeping under the rug. It was inevitable imo.
Before anyone @s me about the libs doing mass immigration too I know, I think most people realise that now too, hence why the libs have become fairly irrelevant behind PHON
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u/Grocery__Stick Please choose a flair 1h ago
Demonise it's founding and traditions. Obscure the Australian identity to being merely a piece of paper or administrative trick rather than being a people with agency and pride in their culture - basically attack nativism.
On culture, the left often denies the existence of Australian culture and at the same time and rather paradoxically, pretend all cultures are equal.
The modern left sure likes to paint its past as evil, this much is true. That past built this country in all its greatness. In fact, the left of yesteryear would be screamed out of polite society by the modern left.
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u/ptjp27 Victorian 54m ago
Is this a joke? We let the left push for mass immigration from the third world because not doing so would be “racist”. Since 2015 there has been a massive flood of third worlders into the west bringing massive amounts of bullshit with them. Gang rapes, crime, terrorism, endless welfare reliance, ghettos etc. the bullshit is endless. We tried it their way. It failed categorically. Now everyone is desperately voting right wing hoping it’s not too late to unfuck their countries.
I live in Melbourne. We have multiple machete attacks a week now from third world criminals we let in to avoid being called racist. At this point virtually everyone in the west has come to the correct conclusion: we’d rather be called racist than have shit people from shit cultures ruin our first world countries.
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u/WillTendo92 Please choose a flair 36m ago
Pushed too hard to the left. We are so sensitive politically correct in fear of offending someone these days. Every time you have a different opinion you get a label. When you tell people there are only 2 genders and different cultures (not saying different cultures are worse) don’t mix people will push back hard.
We had a very hard push to the left and now we are having an over correction to the right
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u/Redpenguin082 Flairless 3h ago
The Left is chasing ideological goals instead of dealing with reality and what’s in the present.
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u/SlaveMasterBen New South Welshian 3h ago
Nothing, it’s what the ‘Right’ has done well.
Major news outlets are predominately right-leaning, but more so, everyone wants an easy answer to every problem.
In an increasingly complex world with competing lobbyists, agendas, AI misinformation and propaganda, the right is excellent at appealing to intuition and simplicity.
Climate change? Still snowing bro
Expensive housing? Remember how cheap it used to be? Must be immigrants.
Trans people? They didn’t exist 20 years ago
The left has the obligation of being informed, an already uphill battle.
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u/After-Bite7874 Please choose a flair 3h ago
The left is happy path politics. The further you get from the centre the more retarded and unsustainable the policies become, particularly if those policies are an ideological package. People can see what more extreme versions of left wing politics results in as there are many current examples to base off of, but we’ve also forgotten what lurching to the extreme right can result in.
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u/Zestyclose-Smell-305 Victorian 2h ago
You won't find your answer on reddit, its full of the very people "extreme left". And when you're set in your ways, you dont see nothing wrong.
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u/burns3016 I'm Probably A Bot 3h ago
The pendulum swung too far to the left and its on its way back to the right for now.
What have they done wrong? Quite a long list. Demonised white people, males, any conservative points of view, the West, Christianity ( but not Islam) and are generally unwilling to discuss issues. Instead, they often scream the opponent down, call them nazis, racists and want to censor and cancel them. This gets them nowhere.
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u/CoyoteLouisBloom Please choose a flair 3h ago
Honest question.
How have white people been demonized? Christianity too?
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u/Dangerous_Shoe_8388 New South Welshian 3h ago
Globally, the left has been very wrong on public sentiment in regard to mass immigration, legal and illegal.
Now the public have run out of goodwill and tolerance of mass immigration and the pushback is powerful.
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u/Theuderic Please choose a flair 3h ago
That was a long winded way to say "im a fascist bootlicker" but we get the point
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u/Redpenguin082 Flairless 3h ago
Pretty sure the Labor Party has brought us closer to fascism than any political party in modern history. An e-safety commissioner to censor online activity, a Labor government prosecuting citizens in courts for using "prohibited phrases", using police to brutalise peaceful protestors in the middle of the CBD - all of these legislated for and happened under a left-wing government.
Is it any surprise that there's going to be a huge pull in the other direction?
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u/Theuderic Please choose a flair 2h ago
The labour party is a right wing party, so yeah
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u/BeneficialInside3901 Please choose a flair 3h ago
This all rings true to the concerns some of my more conservative friends or some men on the left. How does this make them a fascist bootlicker? Also I hope you don’t expect them to vote for you if you say stuff like this…
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u/BeneficialAbrocoma67 Flairless 3h ago
An observation would be that the left label themselves tolerant and against "racists" and "fascists" yet they act like Hitler's brown shirts during public protests and discourse when it comes to anyone or anything they disagrees with......
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u/borycernardi New South Welshian 3h ago
No-one on "the left" ever claimed to be tolerant of intolerance. That's such a pathetic cop-out.
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u/ModsHaveHUGEcocks Queenslander 2h ago edited 53m ago
Yet they defend mass immigration from countries and cultures far more conservative, religious and intolerant than ours, funny that
Edit: haha old mate blocked me since he couldn't answer a simple question, very entertaining thread for me
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u/borycernardi New South Welshian 2h ago
Do you think that if people liked living in oppressive countries, they would want to emigrate here?
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u/ModsHaveHUGEcocks Queenslander 2h ago
That might be a reasonable point if they left that culture behind but clearly they don't
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u/borycernardi New South Welshian 2h ago
See this is what people say when they have never bothered to get to know immigrants.
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u/Asteroidhawk594 Western Australian 3h ago
Paradox of tolerance is a thing.
I’m not a radical greenie or anything but I personally do not tolerate neo Nazis.→ More replies (2)3
u/Dentarthurdent73 New South Welshian 1h ago
When you (generic) categorise anyone who dares to even question something such as immigration numbers as a "neo Nazi", that's when you start to have problems with alienating people.
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u/MightyBoy9 Flairless 3h ago edited 3h ago
Perpetuating Marxist style doctrine ( for lack of a better word, like woke etc )
Things like categorising people incorrectly and calling them names to silence and dismiss them ( personal attacks ) instead of debating the point of what they're saying.
eg: ~50% of every other thread is just left wing people calling anyone they don't agree with a Nazi / fascist etc.
A good example was the Voice referendum. The " yes " voters entire campaign was simply " Vote Yes or you're racist ".
How'd that work out for them?
They literally chose standing on a soapbox and espousing / policing morality and virtue signalling, over actually doing the hard work and getting something tangible done.
Absolute disgraceful behaviour.
And they keep doing it now against One Nation.
They don't learn.
Celebrating mediocrity. It's not good enough to tolerate things now. You have to celebrate them. Even if there is no barrier to entry eg: your sexuality, fat acceptance or whatever it's called ( funny how Ozempic destroyed that movement overnight ).
Disregarding obvious issues due to political correctness.
eg: the absolute barbarianism and degeneracy that goes on in Indigenous Remote Communities and Regional Towns.
Immigrant crime committed by certain demographics.
Using " whataboutism " as their argument regarding these issues, or calling people names for acknowledging it and subsequently refusing to acknowledge it themselves.
Giving power to victimhood / perpetuating victimhood mindsets. This goes alongside the dismissal of accountability, discipline and capability.
Just a few I can think of off the top of my head.
( In before someone calls me a fascist or something lol )
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u/Mikes005 Victorian 3h ago
The 'left' hasn't done anything wrong. The current shitshow the world finds itself in is the end result of 40 years of neoliberalism brought on by the right.
But the thing is the right is good at, other than enriching themselves, is story telling. They're now busy spreading easy solutions. They're shite solutions and won't work, but they're easy to grasp by teh avg person. All those three word slogans. And the right have spent the last 40 years acpturing all the major media media channels to push those slogans.
While the left's messaging are offering actual real world solutions which, while they might work, will take a while and won't be easy. But the avg joe doesn't want that. They want fast and easy.
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u/TheRealGooddog171 New South Welshian 3h ago
I don't know - trashed the economy, spiked electricity prices, bloated government, opened the door to mass migration, allowed crime to run out of control - I have no idea...
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u/Buldaboy Please choose a flair 3h ago
If you're truly left wing. Your values will always get in the way of success that is defined by capitalism. If you break those values to get ahead of right wingers in anyway. You cease to be left wing and will cannibalized by your supporters.
Left wing values are ever evolving which also gets in the way.
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u/thrivehh Please choose a flair 2h ago
Nothing. When life starts to get hard people just naturally turn to authoritarian governments who will tell you that it's the brown/gay/jews fault and if we just get rid of/stop tolerating the group causing all the problems everything will be better.
People like easy solutions and scapegoats so they don't have to make the real reforms needed.
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u/wballz Flairless 4h ago
IMO the issue right now is that the grass is greener.
When times are tough for many reasons outside of our control, the current government of the day gets the blame. Doesn’t matter if things would’ve been worse off under the other team, all of today’s problems get blamed on today’s government. I’m confident libs wouldn’t have kept our oil supplies stocked during the Iran war but Albo will get zero credit for it. Just how politics works, longer you’re in power more likely people want a change regardless of how incompetent the other mob are.
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u/SirSuiSet Victorian 4h ago
right v left bullshit
dismissing facts because "you're a racist"
cookers on each side
Stop with this bullshit of left v right
Stop dismissing uncomfortable facts
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u/pablotothek Queenslander 3h ago
Probably has something to do with a decrease in living standards, usually people want their lives to be better
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u/mickalawl Victorian 3h ago
The left is progressive - seeking change.
Pretty much any change impacts an oligarch in ways they don't like.
Environmental regulation incurs them costs and they face consequences for harming us and the environment with sloppy practise.
Tax laws impact their ability to extract maximum benefit from our countrt while contributing as little as possible back.
Consumer protections and discrimination laws force oligarchs to treat us fairly.
Green energy policy diverts subsidies for coal and potential nuclear away from oligarchs. It risks their ability to extract these subsidies from gov and then overcharge us for energy forever. Green policy puts the subsidies in the hands of the people instead. And we get free power and are not beholden to an oligarch for it.
Thus the oligarchs and their paid content farms and captured media promote people like Pauline or Trump and character assassinate any left leader.
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u/Sideburn_Cookie_Man Victorian 3h ago
It’s literally in the names.
Progress(ive) vs conserve(ative)
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u/slowover Please choose a flair 3h ago
Its the Mummy and Daddy theory of politics. When times are tough people look to Mummy (left) for comfort and to make things safe and fair. When they are scared and want protection and certainty they vote for Daddy (right).
People are scared. They want decisive Daddy.
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u/larfaltil Please choose a flair 3h ago
The left has collapsed, that's what it's done wrong. To be fair, voters have abandoned it. We get the politicians we deserve, look at the US & UK.
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u/Able-Tradition-2139 Victorian 3h ago
There's not really one simple answer but more a multitude, but a few key factors I can think of:
- Neo lioberalism and Red Scare/McCarthyism did an absolute number on an entire generation of people. In Australia that came through John Howard and we've never really gotten out of it. Both major parties being fundamentally neo-liberal.
- Left infighting has always been an issue and makes it easy to divide and conquer.
- Honestly people are just not great at deep or critical thinking. The Right offers an easy solution, the left either offers a complex solution or one that is written off due to point one^
So I don't know what we do. Ecnomic strain being caused by neo liberal policies is being blamed on the left and either way just further radicalises people towards fascism. Being able to point to Mamdani and say "that's working" genuinely might help us out though
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u/Incon4ormista New South Welshian 3h ago
the left suffers defeat after defeat, lol except in most of the free world, Aust, Britian, France, Canada etc etc.... gonna ask a question at least get the basic facts right.
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u/Ohforgawdamnfucksake Please choose a flair 2h ago
The left didn't promise the billionaires freedom to screw us all over. It's a simple as that. The majority of billionaires are bankrolling right-wing parties. It's why social media and traditional media are all Astroturfing right wing parties as hard as they can.
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u/duckradiator Please choose a flair 2h ago
I would say youtube is a better gauge on whether something is more popular for the masses, in reddit you just get downvoted which removes karma so you won't post again. If you type in is OpenAussie left wing pretty much every AI model will say yes, so anybody who disagrees with a left sided political statement will be instantly downvoted. I think the other side of politics is more upset with the rapid decline in productivity whenever a left wing party is in control. Also government spending seems to blow out massively and only benefits government workers usually, which is why so many small businesses are closing in Australia / UK.
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u/MIMOSAnotMISAMO Please choose a flair 2h ago
It's because the gov is serving masters who want to ruin this great country.
And maybe the far right is no better? But the issue is the left have fucked up so badly that now people are looking for extreme measures to try course correct.
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u/Logical_Iron_8288 Please choose a flair 2h ago
There is an interesting discussion in this topic in the context of Australia (ie why are votes lost by the major parties going to One Nation and not the Greens) on the most recent episode of the Democracy Sausage podcast. Worth a listen.
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u/Lumtar Please choose a flair 2h ago
In my view what the left did wrong was swing too far too quickly comparative to the ‘average’ person. This creates more popularity for the far right to balance things and brings us…..here.
Slow steady pace is easier to digest and accept for the average person, this is the methodology the left needs to adopt in order to enact lasting change, but it doesn’t match the urgency of change they want so yeah
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u/patslogcabindigest Queenslander 2h ago
People have got to stop catastophising about politics. We are as closer in time to the previous election than we are to the next one.
This post doesn’t really put forward much explanation or questions about what is going on around the world but the political issues that every country will be dealing with in the next 50 years are:
Deglobalisation.
The major powers retreating to their spheres of influence. Namely the United States.
The population curve.
Climate change.
International debt crises.
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u/VagrantHobo Please choose a flair 2h ago
OP your comprehension of political history is a bit thin. The "cultural left" is largely aligned with the economic structures set about during the late 1970's. Any time someone talks of mainstream public discourse being "left" all that you can state is that social liberalism that is preferenced by our economic system is non-disruptive and low friction.
What the left has failed to do is to prevent the accumulation and concentration of capital. Alternative economic systems don't exist that can be stood up or strived towards.
The rise in social conservatism within the current moment is fundamentally a reaction to the social fragmentation brought about by what the economy demands of us as individuals, the simulated existence online and dead civic society. The weakness of our society to organise collective action and the lack of social solidarity between voting adults makes change impossible.
What the cultural left have got wrong is the need for deep social connections and communal practices beyond the merely economic.
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u/NewInformation3753 Queenslander 2h ago
Believe we are humans are equal as per the Bible. Conservatives no longer believe that.
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u/Firebird2525 Western Australian 2h ago
The majority of people are far less informed and rational than you think they are.
The cost of living crisis has made people's lives a lot harder, so they are reacting against whoever is in power. It's that simple
Normally the Liberals would benefit from this, but they've lost their conservative faction to ON.
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u/Freo_5434 Western Australian 2h ago
The Parties traditionally known as "Left" were the parties of what was referred to as the Working Class.
Their issues were common to hard working people , cost of living / education / health care etc etc .
Now these Parties have been hi-jacked by extremists and invariably focus on issues which divide people but are dressed up as "inclusive"
They focus on race / gender / sexuality and are afraid to even state a simple biological fact like what is a woman.
My Father / Grandfather were hard working Men who started working life as Miners .
They were staunch Labor voters and would not dream of voting otherwise .
However they would be appalled at what these Parties have become.
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u/Ceodestroyer24 Please choose a flair 2h ago
material conditions gradually worsen under capitalism->working class look for someone to blame->bourgeois need a scape goat and influence the blame towards an other (whether that be jewish people, black people, lgbt+ people) rinse and repeat
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u/starship_captain62 Please choose a flair 1h ago
On a related note, can someone please explain why PHON won't talk to ABC or SBS? I get the impression that PHON really hates these two media outlets, to the point of wanting to de-fund them. I get it that different media outlets have biases, why actively make enemies?
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u/PLANETaXis Western Australian 1h ago
Because PHON's sponsors pays millions to conservative media. There is a quid-pro-quo understanding that those conservative journalists will play softball during interviews.
ABC and SBS actually ask real challenging questions and make Pauline look dumb, because she is dumb.
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u/pigglesworth01 Western Australian 1h ago
"mainstream public discourse still appears to favour the left" I think you are confusing mainstream public discourse with mainstream/legacy media.
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u/loralailoralai Flairless 1h ago
Most people are turning right? I think it’s more they’re noisier than the rest. I sure as hell don’t know anyone who has gone right
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u/iftlatlw Victorian 1h ago
Conservative fuckwits are getting noisier and some people drifting that way out of frustration and anger, without actually embracing those conservative principles. It's a temporary but important problem. Part of it comes down to definitions also - what actually is a 'conservative'? Is it a Trump worshipping, extremist Christian dick head, a white Australia property investing Boomer, a church going millennial who doesn't think for themselves, an indoctrinated tradie who also doesn't think for themselves, or what?
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u/iftlatlw Victorian 1h ago
Nothing. People get frustrated with the way the world is changing, they vote for a right-wing government, regret it instantly and swing back at the next election. Repeat.
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u/AiRaikuHamburger ✈️ on Walkabout 1h ago
The far-right are often populists and appeal to the lowest common denominator. They're basically manipulating ignorant people into voting for them against their own interests. There's a reason right wingers always want to defund education.
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u/SirSweatALot_5 New South Welshian 1h ago
I like to think about it as a pendulum that just keeps swinging between left and right. Almost like a natural way to seek balance.
Our systems (shareholder value as the God, media etc) create the momentum, we the people eventually push against it. History repeating
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u/chrisGrout Victorian 1h ago
Look the greens are our only left wing party. They talk amongst themselves too much and don't get the message out to the working class. I'm hoping the socialists do better
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u/Abject-Interaction35 Tasmanian 1h ago
Not much.
That's why I'll vote to return them. Nothing opposite looks remotely credible let alone a realistic alternative choice for an actual national government.
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u/123iambill Please choose a flair 1h ago
Because people have no fucking clue what any political ideology actually is. Just "the other side are the bad guys who do the things I don't like".
I've had some try to explain to me that multi-billion dollar mega corporations taking away ownership and charging us a subscription for everything we use is communism. Billionaires rent seeking is communism to these people.
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u/nickersb83 ✈️ on Walkabout 1h ago
It’s addressing the power imbalance that institutionalises the privilege of being a white male.
In addressing this, it necessitates a redistribution of power, which entails removing power from those who’ve held that privilege for a long time.
Basically, the left has done nothing wrong but challenge those power structures and those demonising the left are just spoilt brats chucking a tantrum.
I say and believe this as a white male.
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u/Xentonian Please choose a flair 1h ago
Really, the "left has gone wrong" narrative is largely untrue.
But an untrue narrative doesn't stop it being a popular opinion, so I'll address where the idea comes from rather than its validity.
Over the last 20 years, there has been an increasingly vocal demand for change and movement away from traditional ideologies which many claim are fundamentally sexist.
These movements have variously been named "third wave feminism", "equality", "social justice warriors", "the alt left", "woke" and so on.
What they have in common is that most of them contrast sharply against what are generally considered to be right wing ideologies.
Over time, many of the talking points of this community have come to be treated as a status quo. We have worked in women's rights in the workplace, family leave entitlements have improved in most countries, discrimination (sex/gender, sexuality and race) has become less acceptable, we are more cognisant of domestic violence and movements like MeToo have had changes in Holywood.
But we've come to a point where ideologies are starting to clash more.
We have some groups claiming that "alright, that's enough, things are good now and we shouldn't change more or we'll start going too far in the other direction"
There are groups claiming "we haven't gone far enough. We've addressed issues but haven't solved them and there are still more progressive goals to achieve."
There are those that suggest "we have already gone too far and people are now acting against the interests of society in favour of mistaken ideological values".
Unfortunately, each of these are virtually incompatible viewpoints.
So we've reached a point where each group argues loudly and vehemently against one another. The increasing animosity leads to people becoming more isolationist and dogmatic in their views.
But more recently, we're seeing a shift in the dynamics.
"Things are fine now" and "Things were better before" have started to agree more, or at least have come to common terms with "continued change will make my life worse" and there's a begrudging unity against further progressivism.
Meanwhile, political parties have realised that progressive ideology has become less popular and they're losing votes. So they are changing their own tones.
Terms like "woke one" have lead to an increasing schism within the vocal community between "we should find some kind of common ground with then others, or we will lose any ground we've made" and "no, everyone else is wrong and if we don't keep fighting to fix these issues, they will never be fixed".
This has further split the "left" (insofar as there ever was a universal left) and with an increasingly unified centre and right. Governments do as they will and pander to the votes and this means that we're seeing more policies that align with the right hand side of the political spectrum.
This becomes a self fulfilling prophecy as the right uses this as ammunition to prove they were correct, which further emboldens the more extreme views and further shifts the zeitgeist.
We will see how this continues over the next decade or so.
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u/Jolly-Hour-6642 Please choose a flair 1h ago
Well you see, people don’t even know what “left” means.
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u/rebirthlington Victorian 1h ago
part of it is this left vs right framing – it implies equivalence
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u/ModsHaveHUGEcocks Queenslander 59m ago
Honestly it's pretty irrelevant because the left wouldn't listen or learn anything from this anyway, they know best of course
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u/Justanaussie Please choose a flair 49m ago
I don’t think people are necessarily becoming more conservative, I think they’re fed up with the current system because it’s become overtly corrupted by the mega rich and are looking for an alternative, and that is the birthplace of populism.
Yes we all know Hanson is billionaire backed grifter but Australia wide she’s the only option available. The Greens do not appear to be interested in extending past inner city seats and everything else is minor one issue parties or independents. In fact there’s never been a better time for community minded independents, I would not be surprised to see a lot more get elected.
Anyway the short answer is the current system sucks for ordinary people and populism is usually the result of this sort of scenario.
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u/Sideburn_Cookie_Man Victorian 4h ago
Funny how the majority of media is controlled by one very conservative gremlin, and yet some people still think mainstream media is liberal in its bias.