What's going on in the land of Oz...

Morrison and his conga line of media cronies are continuing the campaign to hold government by trashing Labor’s record on everything, especially its policies on climate change, tax and asylum seekers. The science on climate change is routinely questioned and vilified by skilled dog whistlers and commentators compromised by their links to vested interests opposed to carbon pricing. A largely ill-informed electorate have up until now swallowed the sound bites and media grabs of this shoddy bunch and have been conned into believing their life-styles are under threat. This may finally be changing…

Morrison pretends to care about the little people while doing the bidding of the mining and power companies. He is a power monger of the worst sort. We have seen his type of politician down through the ages. They set up straw men like ‘evil strawberry terrorists’ to knock down and claim the credit for ‘saving’ the people from some imaginary onslaught. He pitches a different message to different audiences, depending on their relative levels of literacy. Demagogues always operate like this - it is in their DNA to tailor the message to suit the crowd and they are gifted at pressing the right buttons with confected outrage or sanguine ‘nothing to see here’ messages. 

                                               

                                         

Another plank of the strategy is to demonize the Labor leadership, much in the way the Tea Party demonized Obama’s leadership in America. They paint a picture of disunity, betrayal of the body politic, a ‘stab in the back’ for decent citizens by a party beholden to ‘special interests’ such as unions and unspecified ‘elites’. More coded dog whistling to convince the electorate that Labor is incapable of protecting the country from outside threats and the export of jobs.  
The Coalition has gained rich pickings from fear-mongering, as evidenced by electoral support in Queensland, Tasmania, Western Sydney and WA in recent years. Various demographics drift to and from the ‘tea party’ rump of the LNP, in thrall to simple minded messages on climate change, tax and good ole migrant & refugee bashing. 

                                       

                                                 

In much of the media and shock-jock land narrow sectional interests get a helpful leg up in most areas of debate on public policy. We get a diet of reactionary, simple minded drivel on issues such as immigration & asylum seekers and important areas of public policy are ‘spun’ through the lens of media celebrities who survive on a dumbed-down strategy of sound-bites, ‘gotcha’ moments and limpid sensationalism. Political analysis has been reduced to talk-show patter and infotainment for a presumed audience with the concentration span of a distracted gnat. 

Misinformation and outright disinformation have become the currency of many mainstream commentators. The template for this was set up with the formation of the Gillard minority government. Many in the print, radio and television media did not like the result and wanted it gone.  Turnbull is the most recent victim of this phenomenon.

                                                

Morrison’s approach is to don baseball caps and work safe gear and roam bloke dominated small and medium businesses, pretending to care about working people and announcing the end of civilization has been postponed through his prayer tour.  A true ‘man of the people’ with an eye to the big end of town (nudge, wink)…Howard battlers should be checking their back pockets because they’re being conned again.