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News from Australia: we're probably not going to have a Constitutionally-enshrined "Voice" for Aboriginals.
Background: there was a statement by a bunch of Aboriginal groups a while back that they wanted a constitutionally-enshrined advocate in the governmental system*, along with a couple of other things. Opposition leader Anthony Albanese, of the Australian Labor Party, included this in his platform for the 2022 election, which he won**, and we're a bit under a month from a referendum***.
New information: support started high, and certainly the Usual Suspects want a Yes vote. But support has now crashed to the point that it's considered highly unlikely to pass.
Up until now I'd been thinking "well, maybe the US people are right about SJ having peaked in the USA, but that's cold comfort to me", but this has given me some real hope that it's peaking here as well.
*NB: Aboriginals can vote and run for office, and are slightly overrepresented in Parliament compared to the general population.
**Labor is our centre-left party; the other major parties are the Liberals (city-based centre-right), the Nationals (small-town conservatives, in a semi-permanent coalition with the Liberals), the Greens (historically a "hippie" party, and they still do hold basically all the stereotypical "hippie" positions, though they've gone majorly SJ of late), One Nation (alt-rightists since before it was cool) and the United Australia Party (alt-rightists since after it was cool, because an alt-right billionaire had too big an ego to support the existing alt-right party). I actually wound up voting Labor; the Liberals had gotten too comfortable in government to the point that they refused to discuss a bunch of what they were doing, which I consider a threat to democracy, the Greens want to ban One Nation and the UAP, which I consider a much larger threat to democracy, I live in a city so the Nationals weren't on my HoR ballot, the UAP is a bad joke, and while I preferred One Nation's stance on this particular policy (i.e. "get the fuck out of here with your reverse racism") I preferred the rest of Labor's platform to the rest of One Nation's by more.
***Our constitutional amendment procedure - a majority of citizens and a majority of citizens in at least four of the six states must agree to the amendment. Like most other Australian votes, it's mandatory.
In Sweden woke peaked 9 years ago and has been in steady decline since then. It has been strange to see the anglosphere go woke while watching social media and society in general lurch to the right at home. A leading antifa member in Sweden once said the difference between a green voting liberal feminist and a neo nazi race warrior is a non white mob threatening their condo. The liberal middle class is only liberal and woke until it has consequences. Threaten their property values, and they will often demand whatever it takes to defend their lifestyle.
What happened in Sweden was that middle class areas experienced an increase in crime. Schools in good areas experienced diversity, and the dysfunction caused by hundreds of thousands of migrants entering the medical system started to impact the life of people who used to be woke. Unlike the US that much more urban sprawl, richer people in Sweden often life in downtown areas. When their daughters had to go home at night while Afghan gangs sold heroin in their neighbourhood, the interest for BLM narratives was replaced with enthusiastic support for law and order. Surging electrical prices limited enthusiasm for the anti nuclear left and has caused real economic damage to the Swedish middle class living in large homes that have to be heated in the winter.
Australia probably has gone woke because woke hasn't had a major negative impact on people's lives. You haven't had gun crime increase 1000% in 17 years, you haven't seen your electrical grid become unreliable, posh schools don't have 15 year olds pretending to be twelve causing mayhem in class.
The online right thinks the masses can be inspired by ideas and ideology. Rightwingers tend to have little interest in ideology and are content as long as they can barbecue. Australia will stop going woke when woke has an impact on people's lives.
Maybe Sweden is different. Here in the states, we are tolerating problems far worse than Sweden ever had. Wokeness hasn't diminished much if any.
The major blue cities have a murder rate that is more than 10x what Sweden has. And the public schools in our major blue cities have been terrible forever. San Francisco public schools are less than 10% white now as everyone either sends their kids to private school or moves to the suburbs.
Yet these American blue cities are not "lurching" (a mild slur by the way) to the right, far from it. In the past decades they have become woker and woker. If anything, it is the suburbs and rural areas that are becoming more conservative, despite having many fewer of the problems created by lack of rules enforcement.
Edit: I think I might have caused some confusion. By "slur" I mean that lurch is being used as a slur here. "My outgroup moves like a drunk or a zombie". I do not mean that there is anything wrong with the word lurch.
I recognize that this is purely anecdotal, but my overall sense of "blue spaces" (and I live in one) is that in the last 12-18 months there's been an increase in the number of, as the kids say, "based" takes. Especially since the moderator revolt a few months back, a number of previously-radical local subreddits seem to have pivoted towards the center a bit, even if it's IMO quite-modest statements like "local property crime is bad for the community, and actually I want the police to do something" or "letting homeless folks shoot up drugs and openly defecate in the street across from the local elementary school is hardly 'compassionate' to anyone involved" get upvotes and positive engagement.
Agreed. I wouldn't say I'm hopeful yet, but I just visited with some very historically progressive friends in CA, and all were sort of hinting at things having gone too far, which I don't think they ever would have dared to do a year ago.
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