This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Hm, I'm not sure how much I follow the categories that you're using. Australia doesn't really have what I would call a MAGA base. If you're looking for blood-and-soil types, well, firstly a lot of indigenous people are just straightforwardly blood-and-soil in their approach, but presumably they don't count, so secondly you're looking at One Nation and the nativists.
The thing is, the constituency for Australian nativism is somewhat complicated. Over 30% of Australia's population was born overseas, and because we have compulsory voting, all those people turn out. So you can't win an election just with people born here. Fortunately, the One Nation position isn't that immigrants simpliciter are bad - they tend to distinguish along the lines of culture, or less charitably, race. Nobody cares about English immigrants, for instance. They're where Australia comes from in the first place. Likewise we don't care about, say, New Zealand migrants, which are actually very common anyway. (Long story short, if you're an even slightly ambitious young New Zealander and seek opportunity, you come to Australia. And we're fine with that.) One Nation complained about being 'swamped by Asians' in the 90s, and today they're more likely to complain about Islamic immigration. The idea is hostility to people who don't share Australian values or a common cultural identity. Thus, for instance, around 70% of Australians are in favour of open borders with Canada, New Zealand, and Britain. We perceive ourselves as pretty closely connected to all of them.
(It will be interesting to see if demographic changes in Canada alter popular opinion on that, but I digress.)
At any rate, think of the right-wing 'blood and soil' position in Australia to not be 'Australians only', but rather 'Australians and the countries we like only', with the understanding that 'countries we like' means basically the white parts of the British Empire. People who take this view too explicitly will probably be accused of wanting to re-enact the White Australia Policy.
To Trump specifically -
I sometimes think of Australia as being the most America-like country that isn't America. (I would say we beat out Canada only because Canadian identity is specifically formed by not being American. They have a much more intentional sense of resistance against America.) However, there are still important differences, and I think the big one is probably that America has a very different idea of greatness or success to us. You couldn't have 'Make Australia Great Again' as a slogan because we don't have that kind of ambition or pride. That's not how we think of Australia. However, the American influence on our political tradition is significant - while structurally we are a Westminister democracy and the UK is the biggest influence on us, the framers of the Australian constitution read and were significantly (but not slavishly) inspired by the American effort. If you look into Australian patriotic writing from the late 19th and early 20th century, there is a strong feeling that we can use America as a model, or that Australia can be a kind of 'second America' (only loyal this time). Then you have to add to that, of course, the American alliance that has persisted since the Second World War, and we do just look to America for a lot.
This means that when anything in America reads well or sympathetically to the Australian electorate, politicians suddenly get keen on copying it; and likewise when anything in America reads unsympathetically, politicians need to struggle to distance themselves from it. In the past the Coalition has been more vocally pro-America than Labor, and have had close relationships with the Republican party. John Howard made a big show of his friendship with George Bush, for instance, and while it's been a bit more complicated since then, you can see how proud ScoMo was to be next to Biden. (And Biden apparently forgetting his name caused a minor scandal.)
So the issue for Peter Dutton in particular is - the Coalition has generally marketed itself as pro-America, or closer to America than Labor (which has instead been quietly proud of rebuilding our relationship with China). Dutton has also experimented a bit with American-style culture politics, and generally is perceived as a more 'American' politician.
And that seemed to be going well up until Trump lashed out with tariffs, and while we only received the lightest of American tariffs, Trump also refused to give us an exemption (which he had done in his first term). Add in that Trump's self-aggrandising, bullying style of politics plays very badly with an Australian culture that tends to prefer humility and self-deprecation and America's brand is currently in the toilet.
Dutton gets some of the overflow from the hatred of Trump. He and his party are too close to Trump and too close to America. When it comes to foreign policy, I suspect voters currently want a leader who will stand up to America.
More options
Context Copy link