Highland Deac
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In a remarkably similar replay of the 2016 US presidential election, Australia's Labor Party suffered a stunning defeat to the center-right Liberal Party coalition. Polls consistently showed Labor leading right up to election day, but when the results were in Labor had won only 66 seats to the Liberal's 71-72 (76 are necessary for control.) Conservative Scott Morrison will continue as PM.
Some of the comments from the articles about the election are interesting: "Morrison, who is a former immigration minister and Pentecostal Christian, campaigned to keep the economy strong, slash debt and reduce taxes across the board. That seemed to trump the Labor Party's vows to tackle climate change, increase taxes on the wealthy and boost funding to schools and hospitals. "It's a credit to Scott Morrison as an effective campaigner," Warhurst said. "The effective part of his campaign was to throw doubt into the minds of the Australian community about the cost of Labor's proposals." Also, "..there were fierce debates about the rolling leadership turmoil, formal recognition of indigenous Australians, and the treatment of female MPs in parliament. "I think people have become afraid after a very negative campaign," Labor supporter Julie Nelson told Reuters at the party's Melbourne election night function. "They [the Liberals] managed to convince people they should be afraid of change." Sound familiar?
Anybody who thinks that Trump and the GOP will be easy marks in 2020 is fooling themselves, imo. It seems as if traditional liberal democracy is under assault in nearly every advanced democracy, and the reasons are nearly always the same: growing white tribal nationalism and social conservatism, growing fears of diversity and non-white immigration, heavy rural/suburban majorities for conservatives, and right-wingers successfully running negative campaigns while most of their more liberal opponents don't have effective messaging or a connection with voters. Oh, and the polls were wrong - again.
Link #1: https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/18/world/australia-election-scott-morrison-intl/index.html
Link #2: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-48305001
Some of the comments from the articles about the election are interesting: "Morrison, who is a former immigration minister and Pentecostal Christian, campaigned to keep the economy strong, slash debt and reduce taxes across the board. That seemed to trump the Labor Party's vows to tackle climate change, increase taxes on the wealthy and boost funding to schools and hospitals. "It's a credit to Scott Morrison as an effective campaigner," Warhurst said. "The effective part of his campaign was to throw doubt into the minds of the Australian community about the cost of Labor's proposals." Also, "..there were fierce debates about the rolling leadership turmoil, formal recognition of indigenous Australians, and the treatment of female MPs in parliament. "I think people have become afraid after a very negative campaign," Labor supporter Julie Nelson told Reuters at the party's Melbourne election night function. "They [the Liberals] managed to convince people they should be afraid of change." Sound familiar?
Anybody who thinks that Trump and the GOP will be easy marks in 2020 is fooling themselves, imo. It seems as if traditional liberal democracy is under assault in nearly every advanced democracy, and the reasons are nearly always the same: growing white tribal nationalism and social conservatism, growing fears of diversity and non-white immigration, heavy rural/suburban majorities for conservatives, and right-wingers successfully running negative campaigns while most of their more liberal opponents don't have effective messaging or a connection with voters. Oh, and the polls were wrong - again.
Link #1: https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/18/world/australia-election-scott-morrison-intl/index.html
Link #2: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-48305001