4 June

While I think this is an excellent analysis of the state of play of the various players in our electoral team sports, I’d caution against this idea that the Pauline/Trumps of the world are only the result of ‘blue collar’ voters whose livelihoods are under stress. That’s the Trump-Pauline schtick, that they represent the blue collar vote (who they desperately need to get on their team - all rich elites have that as their main challenge, to attract the vote of the less well-off). Plenty of potential One Nation voters are also well-off. Remember also the Voice referendum. That wasn’t just the blue collar vote reacting. People are not economic zombies, they don’t think and behave using economic framings. They think in terms of status, on everything. Populists win elections because they generate the idea that peoples’ status is slipping. That can be completely non-economic, for example by accusing migrants of taking over the country. Or ‘bashing the blacks’, as in the Voice referendum. It had nothing to do with peoples’ money. ‘We want our country back’, ‘Make [insert country name] Great Again’, ‘A true patriot’, etc. About status, not money.