Albanese came to power trying to emulate Hawke, the consensus-builder. But Hawke was working with an older…

Albanese came to power trying to emulate Hawke, the consensus-builder. But Hawke was working with an older sort of opposition, still aiming for public policy outcomes. The LNP, like the Tories and Republicans, hasn't been like that for at least 20 years. /1 https://t.co/iN6YgyAUuU

They're unalloyed populists now, parties captured entirely by donors and running nothing but a constant stream of updated slogans to maintain that popularity, so that they can then act for the donors. There's no mediation, no policy. What was the last LNP policy you remember? /2

And they're getting away with it because too many are still stuck in the old Left v Right team sports, fighting an irrelevant old battle. Populism isn't of the Left or Right, or of politics itself in any way. It's entire focus is just what's popular. /3

And it doesn't take polls for that, it engineers popularity. It's just marketing, dressed up as politics. Complete regulatory capture. To this day LNP front-benchers still answer questions about our energy system for example, by saying 'pick up the phone to the gas companies'. /4

You can't get a clearer view of the complete regulatory capture in play, the gas companies have been phoning in our national energy policy for the best part of 20 years. So with this context, what Albanese is doing is utterly naive political suicide. /5

The referendum showed it in spades. He wasn't dealing with another political party (LNP), trying to build a consensus. The LNP did what they now do for everything, like the Republicans and Tories. They turned the whole issue into meaningless slogans, to wreck the process. /6

And try to build their own popularity. It's what all of the modern Anglo conservative parties do now, for everything. They're literally nothing more than shopfronts for donors. Populism is toxic, politicians always avoided it because they knew its sugar-hit is temporary. /7

Temporary and socially destructive. The 'don't go there' territory. But now these shopfronts pretending to be parties couldn't care less about any of that. All that matters is doing the bidding of the donors. The only exception, the religious culture warriors in the parties. /8

The ones there to wreck the State, because they never accepted secularism and work tirelessly to undermine it. Often the populist strategies are formulated in conjunction with churches, who are historical masters of mass persuasion. And good luck to them, not a judgement. /9

Secular States don't always have a record to be proud of over the past 2-3 centuries. Over 100 million people died in secular wars in the 20th century. But you have to at least be aware of what these people are doing. I think Albo is living a fantasy revival of the 1980s. /end