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/r/fednews is going wild about what's going on with the Institute of Museum and Library Services. This is in-line with this executive order. If this really does goes forward and a significant chunk of federal funding is cut from museums and libraries nationwide, I might really just start go kick a rock somewhere. I love libraries, I love museums, and I really don't think they're that wasteful either. I've read and somewhat understand where other posters are coming from with regards to institutional-ideological-capture, but on this I am struggling to see how that weighs so much compared to the good being provided.
Literally over the weekend on a day trip, my wife and I stopped at the local town's library for a midtrip break and I was absolutely astound at the many services this small town library provided. There was weekly notary service, children activities, a display of locally important quilts, a plethora of tax-season offerings, etc. Personally, in my childhood, my school library was open on Saturday and it was common for my mum to unload us kids there for the day and let us roam the stacks as we please. As a middle schooler, the library was great for a socially anxious kid. And in adulthood, on every exploration walk I've made, if there's a library open, I'm walking in.
For any trip to any world-class city, museums are the first thing on my list. The artifacts, the stories, the experience of seeing things you've only seen in books or through the internet with your own eyes, letting those electrons hit those retinas. Washington DC would be a lot less inviting or exciting without the many museums that dot its map. Even the small libraries can be a great experience as they often document a subject I've never thought of before.
The US greatest treasures are its national parks and forests and public land. Thankfully at least that nature would survive when there are less humans, though I still fear for the actual long term consequences. Not so the libraries and museums. Can someone explains to me why this is a good thing?
Probably for the best that the stuff in museums just gets locked up in some Indiana Jones esque storage somewhere given the current religious hysteria among that class of people. Otherwise they might end up throwing it all back in the dirt like in Australia https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-19/mungo-reburial/105014182
I would like to apologise for my people's barbarism.
What's the atmosphere like over there? I see all this weird culty phrasing like "return to country", but do people IRL just smile and nod at it all?
My outsider's perspective is Australia is in a tough place, because trumpism is imo actually a natural fit for the Australian red tribe, and in several ways builds on the Australian nationalism of the nineties and noughts. But the nationalism of those days was thoroughly discredited in the eyes of the public, smeared by 'both sides' of the mainstream and balkanised, so while there is a tremendous undercurrent of support and hope for something similar here it is tempered by suspicion and the Australians' natural proclivity for cynicism. Their greater willingness to accept temporary hardship for future prosperity gives me hope though, as does the visible anger you can often see on people's faces when you talk about covid. The land acknowledgement business seems to be dying down more recently thank goodness.
I don't actually think it's a good fit for the Australian Red tribe equivalent, for two reasons.
Firstly, Trumpism relies a lot on charismatic authority and trust in the leader. Americans have a lot more reverence for leaders and especially for businessmen than Australians do. Tall poppy syndrome is still a very powerful force in Australian culture, which means that a Trump-style campaign would not work. There's a reason why, despite its success in both the US and the UK, the Australian series of The Apprentice failed to attract an audience. (Meanwhile The Celebrity Apprentice did well over here, but that's okay because it's all about making celebrities look like an idiots, and if there's one thing Australians love, it is bringing people who think they're better than everyone else back down to earth.) This can be a subtle thing, but in general we just don't feel good about people who put themselves forward like that. Trump-style braggadocio would fail in Australia. If you'd like an example, businessman Clive Palmer has been trying to run Trump-style campaigns here and has mostly failed. Trumpet of Patriots is very blatantly trying to run the Trump strategy here and it is not working. The language is totally alien to Australians, especially the kind of working class or regional voters they need to swing.
Secondly, I think the Trump base is characterised by a kind of defiance or rebelliousness that does not exist in Australia, at least not in the same way. For all that Australians typically dislike authority, and especially proud people, we also tend to be compliant or obedient in a way that Americans are not. The default Australian posture is to grumble about the idiots and bastards in charge and then follow all their instructions faithfully anyway. (You'll notice this in e.g. Australian war drama, where common themes are firstly that our British officers are all a bunch of morons with their heads up their arses who don't know what they're doing, and secondly that nonetheless we are faithful and dutiful and do everything we ought to. We complain, but we obey.) You'll notice this if you look at the covid lockdowns, for instance - Australia had some of the longest lockdowns on the planet, but we also had relatively few protests. There were a couple, but they were few and small especially if compared to those seen in the US. Australians may not like popular authority, but we also tend to view it as legitimate. I trace a lot of this back to the early experience of colonisation - convicts ruled by appointed officers and governors. A prison is a context where you resent the people in charge, and you may be quietly insubordinate where you can get away with it, but you mostly obey orders. While only the very first generation of colonists were convicts and free settlers came to outnumber them very rapidly, I think the political structure of a penal colony influenced the Australian mindset in formative ways.
Anyway, long story short I do not think Trumpism would work in Australia. You would need to find a way of advocating for similar ideas that nonetheless resonates with the Australian psychology.
Bjelke-Petersen always seemed pretty Trumpy to my British sensibilities (his son is working with Clive Palmer, which confirms the theory). He was hugely successful inside Queensland and politically toxic in the rest of Australia.
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