The problem with US-based democracy theory is that it only knows the cartoon extremism of the US experience.…

The problem with US-based democracy theory is that it only knows the cartoon extremism of the US experience. So everything is these boring big binaries of authoritarianism vs ‘bottom-up’, ‘grassroots’ action, centred on elections. /1 https://t.co/VR4yOO1g7S

In reality places like Australia solved these problems in an entirely different and pragmatic way. We historically focused our politics on the practical community-building activities of everyday life, like community sport. That’s where we learned how to live together, and…/2

…politics became just an extension of that. Our institutions were also historically ruthlessly pragmatic, completely uninterested in all of these ideology wars. They were like big community sporting clubs. Of course now we have our own libertarians, trying to graft US…/3

…cartoon democracy onto the Australian experience. Mostly they fail, in the medium to longer term, because the community-based focus reasserts itself. I only hope that continues, though the increasing mediation of community life by social media now (another child of cartoon…/4

…US democracy) makes me less confident the genius Australian model will survive. 5/5