Beware the new ‘normal’, it might be about to bite us

Anyone interested in politics would have heard the paraphrased Plato quote at some point – “one of the penalties of refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors”.

The translation from Republic is a little more nuanced – Plato was obsessed with order and assumed everyone was just as obsessed as him, and carried that assumption through to a desire to hold office.

So Plato assumed everyone went into office for the same reason. The whole passage the paraphrased quote comes from goes something like this:

“For they are not desirous of honours. It is indeed necessary to add some compulsion and penalty on them if they are intending to be willing to rule. This is likely the reason that a willingness to go to office without facing compulsion is considered shameful. But the greatest penalty is to be ruled by someone worse if a person is not willing to hold office himself. It seems to me that people of propriety hold office (when they do) because they fear that outcome and that they enter into power not because they are going after something good or because they enjoy it, but because it is necessary and they are not able to entrust it to those better than themselves or their equals.”

Which, obviously, is not true. Some people just like power. Those same people enjoy sowing seeds of discord that they never have to actually solve, in order to keep it. They are able to do that, because many of us in the media work to make their offerings seem sane and normal.

That’s not something unique to Australia – most Western democracies have a media complicit in sane-washing, because, like Plato, they are obsessed with order. And in order for things to make sense, they have to be able to fit into the system.

That’s why, only now, are you seeing mainstream political journalists admit to being surprised at the speed and competency in which Trump and his acolytes are carrying out a plan that was telegraphed, in a manifesto, years in advance. It didn’t make sense to them that anyone in the American political system would operate outside of the unspoken rules – abusing power is fine, as long as it’s not abused domestically, and if it must be abused domestically, only for the politically-agreed-upon baddies.

The Patriot Act, passed under George Bush jr laid the groundwork for much of what Trump and his Rasputins are using to subjugate dissent now. Your data, is their data – and that’s national security baby! Only now, with white people being murdered in the street by federal agents, is the sensible media in the US openly expressing alarm.

Australia might not see a Trump here, but many of the foundations of our democracy are laid on trust and good intentions. We don’t even have confirmation hearings, so if Australia reaches the point of electing a competent authoritarian, and they wanted to appoint a red-light shilling influencer to the head of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, they could. It wouldn’t be a stretch to see SAD hosts made ambassadors.

In Australia, we rely on trust in our systems, rather than the integrity of the system itself, to maintain order. But what if the outrageous becomes normalised? Trump spent most of the decades before his first and then second tilt at the White House being humoured, coddled and sane-washed.

An openly racist reality TV star with a disdain for rules, and rights, someone with more wealth than 99 per cent of people could imagine, play-acting as an anti-elite.

Who would take that seriously?

Australia. More than once.

The normalisation of One Nation, through reality TV, breakfast TV slots and inclusion as a serious political player in Australia has been media-driven, dressed up as the people’s choice. That’s not to say that the rise of One Nation should not be taken seriously – Australia, like much of the West, is at an inflection point, largely thanks to 30 years of market-led policies that have failed all but the very rich.

Pauline Hanson has always tapped into that anger, but she has excelled by putting blame anywhere but the rich, who see her as a useful tool. Hanson, and now Barnson, have always been happy to be used. It’s built wealth, access and relevancy, without ever having to change tunes.

But 6 per cent of Australians voted one for One Nation at the last election. That’s just under one million Australians.

Recent polling, particularly the first DemosAU poll that set media hounds bolting, suggests that right now, 3.5 million Australians would put One Nation first. That’s a pretty heroic jump and it’s relying on some pretty heroic assumptions, one of which being that Coalition voters in every electorate would have the same voting habits as the 20,000 National Party voters in the seat of Hunter. It also assumes that Greens voters who put the Coalition ahead of Labor would put One Nation ahead of Labor. And people voting outside of the major parties would split 50:50 Labor and One Nation.

It’s obvious that Coalition voters are looking elsewhere and One Nation is benefitting from that. But while the media talks up the chance of a One Nation opposition (without taking into account how some of these polling conclusions have been made, or how younger voters break, or even which seats outside of the regions or those the Coalition hold – not enough to form government, while splitting in opposition) what is being normalised is One Nation policies, which ape those the Coalition has been pushing for, and now, mask off, is embracing.

There are no federal moderate Liberal MPs. They do not exist in the modern Liberal Party. There has been no moderate Liberal policies for years.

Outside of an attack on tax or super reforms, the “moderates” have embraced every right-wing policy, from anti-migration to anti-climate action.

While attention has been on Barnson and the inevitable split of the Coalition, Scott Morrison’s re-emergence as a Liberal Party guide, helped along by Evangelical networks in the US, has largely been missed.

Morrison has been dolling out advice, both publicly and privately, as if he didn’t help lead the Coalition off the cliff. And because Morrison’s politics, trips to Israel and all, is not only considered normal now, but the centre, it seems perfectly reasonable to promote his views and then have “moderates” like Andrew Bragg back him in. Even though there are no Nationals in the party room to appease. Just the right-wingers that “moderates” like Bragg have always capitulated to, in some deluded belief that maybe, one day, they might let him have a senior leadership role. And then he’ll be able to change it from the inside!

We are seeing the next steps in anti-migration attitudes laid out in plain sight, with Muslims once again being used as a stalking horse. It’s all so normal. Just as “family values” is normal. It’s all just Australia First, right?

Just because something seems ordered, doesn’t make it right. Political and media classes will always try to shape right-wing anger as legitimate, while continuing to treat pushback as radical. (Just look at how the man who apparently hurled a “device” into a peaceful Invasion Day rally is being treated in the media).

And they tend not to ever see it, until it becomes so obvious, that not even their rules apply any more.

The danger is what becomes “normal” while they sit blind.

Amy Remeikis is a contributing editor for The New Daily and chief political analyst for The Australia Institute

This piece was originally published on The New Daily.