Richard Glover yesterday was pining for the days when political opponents could be bipartisan. We need to…

Richard Glover yesterday was pining for the days when political opponents could be bipartisan. We need to challenge the Pollyanna view of politics we have in the West I think, to understand why it looks like a toilet right now. #auspol https://t.co/0E5XmMw1iV

For 70 years we’ve had the politics of privilege, and mistaken that for politics. There’s rarely much need for politics if you’re privileged, because there’s enough wealth and freedom to paper over the differences between people. Nobody is really fighting for survival. /2

So all of that lovely bipartisanship we grew up with, the politics where we could not pay much attention at all except occasionally at elections, was really hiding fault-lines in our societies. Division is a key concept, because it has two different but related meanings. /3

To divide is to share. Like dividing up a loaf of bread between a group. But division also means conflict, and that’s how we use the word much more now. What we’re not seeing I don’t think is that they’re the same meaning. It’s conflict that creates sharing, equity. /4

The reason our politics looks so ‘divided’ right now is that we’re not divided enough, as a society. Huge disparities in wealth and freedoms. Those disparities aren’t redressed in our lifestyle lives, so percolate up to the political level, where they explode. /5

So many years of ignoring this lack of division of society’s wealth and opportunity has led to a pressure cooker situation at the pointy political end of the boat. Those who pine for peaceful, friendly politics are arguing for a return of the old order of privilege. /6

We need more debate, more conflict, more fighting in general, to fix things. Not less. We’re so timid, holidaying on this planet with our privileged lifestyles, oblivious to enormous injustices. Conservative politics is desperately trying to save that life. /7

It’s always played the polite, genteel card, in politics. The expensive suits, the calm words, of those who occupy the most privileged places in society, and say it was all their own doing, and the rest of us should just work harder. These people need many rude awakenings. /end