This latest election has reinforced even more strongly for me that societies cannot be saved from election…

This latest election has reinforced even more strongly for me that societies cannot be saved from election bubbles. 100% of the emotion and analysis has been either elation or despair at the relative success of the two teams, Red and Blue. Oz is next. /1 https://t.co/jvVaDE7S0z

‘It’s the economy, stupid’ was a Bill Clinton phrase. This headline indirectly refers to it. Has anybody stopped to contemplate what the phrase means? /2 https://t.co/Cl09qB2gmp

I don’t think the economy is even a thing. But the insight behind Clinton’s phrase is mostly accurate. He was saying that the material conditions of peoples’ lives determine elections. Not the popularity of this or that team. /3

And to add to Clinton’s insight, it’s not specifically the material conditions of our lives. It’s peoples’ perceived STATUS within society. If they feel their status is steady or has improved, they’ll tend to vote for the incumbent. /4

If their status feels threatened, they’ll tend to vote for somebody new. It really is as simple as that. All the analysis about how this or that policy or statement by the competitors defined the election ignore that most people pay no attention to politics at all. /5

They vote, as Walter Lippmann once noted, according to just a generalised gut feel as to the relative health of their status in society. And this leads to an even more critical reframing we need to do. /6

Politicians, commentators and their team sports are the tiniest thin veneer of hot air over the top of this materially-based status game. They attribute wins to the winner, and losses to the losers. ‘It’s the economy, stupid’ is lost on them. /7

There are two almost completely distinct mechanisms in play here, always conflated. The ever-shifting popularity games of what we call ‘politics’. And the material realities and status games of our actual lives. These have almost zero connection, to each other. /8

A ‘landslide’ victory is nothing to do with the winner of an election. It reflects a society whose material conditions of life and perceptions of status are critically broken. People clamouring for change. /9

A populist leader who celebrates a landslide victory is a fool. People cannot name one such landslide victory that has ever ended well. The social problems they inherit are likely impossible to solve. This is the hilarious irony of our election bubbles. /10

The things that seem like the greatest success within the bubbles, big election wins, in reality represent a total disaster. For the winner more than anybody. We refuse to focus on the material realities of life and choose to focus only on the populist team sports. /11

Wailing and gnashing teeth when our team loses. Euphoria when our team wins. Ask Keir Starmer how his euphoria is now going. This was only months ago. Or Boris Johnson. He didn’t even last a single term. /12 https://t.co/4coph1g6sn

How do we not notice these obvious things? Because we’re so deeply hypnotised by the team sports of popularity battles. ‘Politics’ is our all-year football premier league. /13

Reality continues alongside all of this ridiculous team sports, sometimes momentarily deflected by it as winners shape it in various ways. But well beyond their capacity to make any fundamental change, except to break things. /14

Well-meaning souls claim that by voting for people who won’t break things, elections still have an important role. But elections just breed more elections, not solutions to anything. Popularity has never in our lives solved a single problem. Did it at school? /15

No. So why would it in adult life? That fierce battle for ultimate status is focused only on itself. The purpose of winning elections now is to win more elections. Albanese at his victory put 2 or 3 more victories top of his priority list of things to do. QED. /16

He may still be a one-termer. He may lose to the obviously, comically incompetent LNP. If he does it won’t be because (as they will claim) they were better suited to run the country. None of them are running the country. /17

It will be because the material conditions of peoples’ lives, and therefore their perception of status, are broken. It’s the economy, stupid. /end