The Poor Aussie’s Version of Trump

Australia is boring. That’s cool, it stops us going insane.

We have all those comfortable, juicy amenities: schools, subsidised healthcare, relative freedom and security. Awesome. We’re a dull lump of safety. No sharp point. At the top of our society you find not a jagged, impossible peak, but a gentle, grassy mound.

While it may lead those with ambition and special skill to leave, it does mean we needn’t yet fear tyranny.

If the most Trumpism can inspire in our nation is Cory Bernardi, we’re going to be OK. Pauline Hanson’s One Nation is already hurtling towards the abyss, passing the scuff marks she left in the 90s.

Even if our comfort tends to create a “she’ll be right” somnambulism, it doesn’t mean we can be complacent. My partner and I wrote letters to our representatives and country leaders recently because we could see creep. If the George Christensens and Bernardis of our time spawn sharper, more aggressive, more effective options, there’s an ill potential. We wrote to our members and senators asking them to speak loudly and repeatedly, reinforcing our open, non-discriminatory immigration policies, to remind us we aren’t like that.

So far we’ve been lucky in our nation’s relative flatness. Our richest aren’t that rich, our powerful wielding compartmentalised and restricted power. A very rich man is our Prime Minister, but clearly money doesn’t buy you efficacy in the Australian parliament. The minor parties break up overwhelming majorities, even if their approaches are more haphazard than the Democrats and Greens before them.

The tall poppy syndrome, in this instance, keeps leaders from getting ahead of themselves and rallying the worst or best of us to become forces of massive, sweeping change. We move slowly, we are often last of the OECD nations to progress. We take our time. It’s frustrating and lethargic and drives us up the wall, but so far, with the world turning to dark versions of conservatism, it’s stopped us driving off a cliff.