Paradoxically, progressive voters are the main cause of populism. The most divorced from the basic realities…

Paradoxically, progressive voters are the main cause of populism. The most divorced from the basic realities of power and how it’s exercised to bring about change. Conservatives rarely protest, they know it changes hardly anything. They organise. /1 https://t.co/NWgXdk9ek0

Progressives understood this in the 19th and earlier 20th century. They organised actual physical change processes, unions and their associated political protests. Now they mostly make heartfelt speeches and protest, expecting that to magically change things. It won’t. /2

To be clear, I voted for a change in government in Australia. I’m not arguing to have back the laughable mess of the LNP. But for a couple of years I’ve also been attacking populism, our biggest enemy. The idea that leaders run countries. And so a change of leader will…/3

…somehow change the country. Nope. It will help, but it’s the tiniest top tip of an iceberg. This is why progressive politics has had its arse kicked for decades, because it’s forgotten about organising change. Independents are now reminding them of it again. /4

No amount of righteous certainty at the truth of your position will change a single thing in a society. You have to organise the change. It takes years, it takes thousands of people. And this is how progressives then also lose the victories they win. Watch this space,…/5

…impatience that the leader doesn’t fix everything that took decades of criminal incompetence to create, in 3 years. The most sure way to return the LNP to power in 3 years is to set the bar of expectations ridiculously high for the ALP right now. /6

It’s preparing the cannon fodder for the next LNP election campaign, where they can run on the ‘failure’ of the ALP to change the mess they created. It’s not ‘fix all this Albo’, it’s ‘fuck it’s a mess, we’re with you for multiple terms to try to get it sorted.’ /end