In times of trouble for any group you care to name, self-definition becomes a cornerstone of the rhetoric.

The vagueness of "Make America Great Again" was what made it so effective. Voters in the United States could slot whatever favourable vision/smell/taste they liked into their craniums when they heard the phrase.

These are times of strife for rugby league in Australia, make no mistake. The 16 NRL clubs seem to have raised the requisite support to have ARLC chairman John Grant deposed, and from there they seem to want to wreak varying degrees of additional destruction on the way the sport is structured.

Only a few weeks ago this column warned that not even sport would be immune from the tsunami of fear and resulting ultra-conservatism sweeping almost all areas of life globally right now.