Striking to watch contrasts between different political cultures. People from the US for example much more…

Striking to watch contrasts between different political cultures. People from the US for example much more likely to believe change will come from mobilising lots of ordinary people. Australians focus more on accountability for their existing institutions. But…/1

…the growth of social media is shifting the Australian culture more towards the US culture, of a belief that change comes from mobilising ordinary people (usually with social media). I think that’s a terrible shift, it’s the libertarian fantasy going global. /2

‘The people’ is not and never will be a thing. It is not an actor with agency, it’s just a collection of bodies and minds with no necessary connection at all. Government is ALREADY ‘the people’, expressed as a collective agency. /3

The binary between people and government IS the libertarian con. There is no binary, people invented government, to serve them, as people. Populists pretend you can bypass that and talk to the people directly, as some agency independent of institutional government. It’s a lie. /4

Those who use ‘the people’ politically never talk to any people, except their fellow cronies. They project all sorts of meanings onto things like votes that aren’t even real. It’s a trick, to replace our existing collective institutions with think tanks and social media. /end