The pond has taken to covering the lizard Oz's daily jihads as an entrée but there's nothing to whet the appetite in gossip about Mike Cannon-Brookes and a standard beat up about secret reports and Australian war crimes in Afghanistan - especially as the reptiles never look in the mirror and wonder about their many crimes in encouraging a war which resulted in such dismal outcomes for Afghani women.
On the upside, the reptiles had briefly forgotten their comrade Dan jihad.
But that was no consolation, so it was straight into the main courses, and who wouldn't salivate at yet another serve of the bromancer?
The header: Far left, far right: the Weimar Germany shadow looming over US politics; JD Vance’s friend, writer Rod Dreher, sees in the US the same crisis that characterised Weimar Germany when gangs of Nazis and communists did furious battle in the streets.
The caption for the collage so awful that no reptile put up their hand to claim it: The mood in the US is similar to that of the Weimar Republic period in Germany (background picture) in 1925 author Rod Dreher warns. Divisive figures in the US include far-right influencer Nick Fuentes, left, Israel-demonising Abdul El-Sayad, second left, antisemite Candace Owens, third left, and MAGA media darling Tucker Carlson, right. Pictures: Getty Images/AFP
This was a bromancer 9 minute read opus, wherein the bromancer tried to cope with all that Faux Noise has wrought on the American political and cultural landscape, though naturally without a single mention of Fox or the Emeritus Chairman.
Instead, as the header indicated, the bromancer did what comes naturally to reptiles down under - turn to a barking mad American fundamentalist as his guide.
Now there are many better guides to the American scene, in diverse American publications, and freely available on the intertubes, but please, indulge the bromancer in his ramblings ...
It is the season of hatred in the US. The rise of extremism, left and right, and the bitter polarisations in politics and society mean the threat of an American civil war is not entirely far-fetched.
Not a conflict ranging army against army but street-fighting thugs, murderous extremists, violently fixated individuals of the far left and the far right. The FBI has 10,000 open intelligence files on individuals who pose a potential threat to public figures.
The triumph of far left, Israel-demonising Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan Democratic Senate primary, following the example of far leftist New York mayor Zohran Mamdani, who recently made the top issue in New York his desire to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he passed through, shows the creeping takeover of the Democrats by dangerous ideological extremists. This is terrifying for many ordinary people. Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch of the New York Board of Rabbis believes Mamdani’s relentless demonisation of Israel, Israelis and Zionists could well lead to mass casualty violence against Jews in New York.
But the same thing is happening on the American right. The same antisemitism is sprouting on the right as has long disfigured the left. It’s not just antisemitism, of course. It’s a whole swirl of identity politics hatreds, mimicking the identity politics of the left, and a degradation of the mind in thrall to a seemingly infinite online offering of conspiracy theories and violent enmities.
Not a conflict ranging army against army but street-fighting thugs, murderous extremists, violently fixated individuals of the far left and the far right. The FBI has 10,000 open intelligence files on individuals who pose a potential threat to public figures.
The triumph of far left, Israel-demonising Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan Democratic Senate primary, following the example of far leftist New York mayor Zohran Mamdani, who recently made the top issue in New York his desire to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he passed through, shows the creeping takeover of the Democrats by dangerous ideological extremists. This is terrifying for many ordinary people. Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch of the New York Board of Rabbis believes Mamdani’s relentless demonisation of Israel, Israelis and Zionists could well lead to mass casualty violence against Jews in New York.
But the same thing is happening on the American right. The same antisemitism is sprouting on the right as has long disfigured the left. It’s not just antisemitism, of course. It’s a whole swirl of identity politics hatreds, mimicking the identity politics of the left, and a degradation of the mind in thrall to a seemingly infinite online offering of conspiracy theories and violent enmities.
The solution?
Turn to a month old outing by Dreher in the both siderist NY Times, in consort with Ross Douthat, who has already scuttled off to CBS, as if that network wasn't already in freefall: No TV experience? At CBS News, that’s no problem
Here's the transcript in the intermittent archive:
‘ I’m Worried About Weimar America’
“It may not be Hitler 2.0. It may not be Stalin 2.0. It might be something all American, but it’s not going to be what we’re used to,” the author Rod Dreher argues.
“It may not be Hitler 2.0. It may not be Stalin 2.0. It might be something all American, but it’s not going to be what we’re used to,” the author Rod Dreher argues.
In that outing a couple of useless Xians yammered on about Xianity, and naturally that appealed to the useless Xian side the bromancer routinely parades:
Rod Dreher, one of the most brilliant conservative Christian writers in the US, tells me that he sees in contemporary America the same social breakdown, the same crisis of meaning and purpose, the same rise of extremism especially among the young, especially among young men, as characterised Germany in the 1920s and 30s, in the decadent, corrupt, ineffective and tragic Weimar Republic.
The reptiles promptly posted a snap of Dreher that might be considered defamatory, considering it revealed the sort of company he likes to keep: Rod Dreher with US Vice President JD Vance. Picture: Supplied
What's comical about this? Well the bromancer via Dreher reverts to that hoary old device, that ancient metaphor, wheeling out Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, as a way of avoiding dealing with the madness already naked in the land, courtesy mad King Donald (aided and abetted by Faux Noise):
Dreher has been a close friend of US Vice-President JD Vance but now rebukes his friend for failing clearly to condemn the rise of antisemitism and broader extremism among substantial sections of the right. This includes the work of well-known American media figures such as Tucker Carson, who invites and respectfully interviews well-known antisemites on his programs, and Candace Owens, but also particularly in the horrible and obscene statements of perhaps the leading influencer and streamer of the far, far right, Nick Fuentes.
Far left and far right have become a grotesque mirror of each other in contemporary US politics.
Season of hate
Dreher, whom I’ve known for a decade and admire, tells me he fears his nation is becoming Weimar America. This doesn’t mean an inevitable rise of an American Adolf Hitler. It does mean a collapse of purpose and effectiveness in institutions and society.
One more note on the eerie similarity of the far left and far right. El-Sayed’s campaign was a classic “green-red alliance”; that is, a yoking together of left-wing activist critiques of the US and all its works, of campus radicalism, with an obsessive hatred of Israel and Zionism, which appealed to a sizeable chunk of Michigan’s Muslims.
A similar dynamic works on the right. The nativism inherent in “America First” becomes a hostility directed not at geo-strategic rivals such as China and Russia, or even Iran, but at Israel on the pretext that Israel and “the Jews” keep entangling an innocent but naive Washington into endless destructive wars. The appreciation of the role of Christianity in American history transmogrifies into a hatred of Judaism itself, drawing on medieval Christian prejudices, long repudiated by all decent Christians, to animate a deformed and hate-filled version of racist Christian nationalism.
Sometimes the parallels between far left and far right are eerie. El-Sayed enlisted one of the most influential far-left influencers and streamers, Hasan Piker, to help him connect to radical university audiences. He campaigned side by side with Piker. Among a torrent of obnoxious pronouncements, Piker has declared that America deserved the 9/11 terror attacks, that the terrorist group Hamas is a thousand times better than Israel and that the murderous dictator Chairman Mao Zedong was a great leader.
Far left and far right have become a grotesque mirror of each other in contemporary US politics.
Season of hate
Dreher, whom I’ve known for a decade and admire, tells me he fears his nation is becoming Weimar America. This doesn’t mean an inevitable rise of an American Adolf Hitler. It does mean a collapse of purpose and effectiveness in institutions and society.
One more note on the eerie similarity of the far left and far right. El-Sayed’s campaign was a classic “green-red alliance”; that is, a yoking together of left-wing activist critiques of the US and all its works, of campus radicalism, with an obsessive hatred of Israel and Zionism, which appealed to a sizeable chunk of Michigan’s Muslims.
A similar dynamic works on the right. The nativism inherent in “America First” becomes a hostility directed not at geo-strategic rivals such as China and Russia, or even Iran, but at Israel on the pretext that Israel and “the Jews” keep entangling an innocent but naive Washington into endless destructive wars. The appreciation of the role of Christianity in American history transmogrifies into a hatred of Judaism itself, drawing on medieval Christian prejudices, long repudiated by all decent Christians, to animate a deformed and hate-filled version of racist Christian nationalism.
Sometimes the parallels between far left and far right are eerie. El-Sayed enlisted one of the most influential far-left influencers and streamers, Hasan Piker, to help him connect to radical university audiences. He campaigned side by side with Piker. Among a torrent of obnoxious pronouncements, Piker has declared that America deserved the 9/11 terror attacks, that the terrorist group Hamas is a thousand times better than Israel and that the murderous dictator Chairman Mao Zedong was a great leader.
After that classic bout of both siderism, the reptiles flung in a snap of Nick: Nick Fuentes, the leader of a Christian-based extremist white nationalist group speaks to his followers, 'the Groypers'. Picture: Getty Images
Here's the problem. You don't have to look over there, you just have to look at the leader.
A few days ago BuzzFeed produced yet another collage:
16 Really, Really, Really Weird Things Donald Trump Posted This Weekend
I’m surprised no one has asked him about his Elvis thing yet.
I’m surprised no one has asked him about his Elvis thing yet.
Just a few samples:
That's just scratching the surface.
Those are just a few examples of the sort of visual pollution that streams out into the ether on an almost nightly basis, as the mad king stays awake and indulges in his meme fetish, yet no one notices or bothers to comment on the madness.
Deeply, deeply weird. It's as if they just want to ignore the crazy uncle in the attic, and sure enough the bromancer does ...
Compare Piker with Fuentes. Amid a blizzard of insanity, Fuentes has declared that “Adolf Hitler is f. king cool”. This was not some exercise in bad taste irony. Fuentes has repeatedly defended his statement, claiming Hitler represented a time “when white people didn’t give a f. k!”
You can see a similar idiocy, a similar quest for notoriety, for clicks, by saying the most offensive thing possible, in both men. What’s frightening in this moment is the wide following and influence both these extremists enjoy. Both far left and far right are consciously working, especially via social media, to bring ideas of hatred and countless old lies into the centre of the public square, to turn the crackpot into the mainstream.
Far left and far right get to their extremism by alternative roads, but, in Dreher’s analysis, the same social and cultural crisis gives rise to both.
First a word on Dreher. He is astonishingly prolific and influential in a way that is at first elusive. He worked for a decade for The American Conservative and Vance, in his recent spiritual memoir, Communion, attributes the take-off of his first book, Hillbilly Elegy, to an interview he did with Dreher.
The first of Dreher’s books to make a big splash, The Benedict Option, was a serious, intensely honest effort to come to grips with how Christians could sustain and renew their faith and their community in a hostile Western culture. One of its core messages was that Christians couldn’t profitably seek salvation in politics.
Another work, Live Not by Lies, examined the psychology of the “soft totalitarianism” embodied in woke orthodoxy. It did this in part by exploring the psychological strategies of Christian dissidents in the Soviet Union.
You can see a similar idiocy, a similar quest for notoriety, for clicks, by saying the most offensive thing possible, in both men. What’s frightening in this moment is the wide following and influence both these extremists enjoy. Both far left and far right are consciously working, especially via social media, to bring ideas of hatred and countless old lies into the centre of the public square, to turn the crackpot into the mainstream.
Far left and far right get to their extremism by alternative roads, but, in Dreher’s analysis, the same social and cultural crisis gives rise to both.
First a word on Dreher. He is astonishingly prolific and influential in a way that is at first elusive. He worked for a decade for The American Conservative and Vance, in his recent spiritual memoir, Communion, attributes the take-off of his first book, Hillbilly Elegy, to an interview he did with Dreher.
The first of Dreher’s books to make a big splash, The Benedict Option, was a serious, intensely honest effort to come to grips with how Christians could sustain and renew their faith and their community in a hostile Western culture. One of its core messages was that Christians couldn’t profitably seek salvation in politics.
Another work, Live Not by Lies, examined the psychology of the “soft totalitarianism” embodied in woke orthodoxy. It did this in part by exploring the psychological strategies of Christian dissidents in the Soviet Union.
It wouldn't be a true comedy without Candace: Candace Owens speaks on a Conservative Political Action Conference in Washinton. Picture: Getty Images
The bromancer thought at last he should put in a minor billy goat butt:
His last book, Living in Wonder, explored the miraculous in everyday life and sought to redress the long cultural project of “disenchantment” in the West.
I greatly admire Dreher’s writings, but naturally I don’t share all his opinions.
His new and original analysis comparing the US cultural malaise to that of Weimar Germany is powerful and offers a coherent explanation for the rise of dangerous extremism on left and right.
The US crisis today has many dimensions, Dreher, these days based in Texas, tells me during a long telephone conversation: “There’s an economic crisis. Large numbers of young people can’t hope to own a house, hold down a stable job, form a family, all the normal parts of a middle-class life.
I greatly admire Dreher’s writings, but naturally I don’t share all his opinions.
His new and original analysis comparing the US cultural malaise to that of Weimar Germany is powerful and offers a coherent explanation for the rise of dangerous extremism on left and right.
The US crisis today has many dimensions, Dreher, these days based in Texas, tells me during a long telephone conversation: “There’s an economic crisis. Large numbers of young people can’t hope to own a house, hold down a stable job, form a family, all the normal parts of a middle-class life.
He's living in Texas?
But let's not ignore the way he found time to settle down in company with Viktor Orbán and the Danube Institute, home for lowlifes of the onion muncher kind, providing much fun to Reddit users: Rod Dreher decides he is bravely running away from Hungary! It’s the end of an era.
And so to the barking mad Xian bit ...
The loss of ‘logos’
“There’s also a crisis of social solidarity. There’s been talk of a generation gap since the 1960s. Now the generation gap’s a Grand Canyon. Baby Boomers and Generation X have so much difficulty understanding the world as seen through the eyes of young people.
“The different generations live in their different information silos. Young people have grown up in an environment where everything is fluid. They don’t believe in the traditions and institutions of their society. Because of artificial intelligence and the internet they may not even know what truth is. The core weakness of Weimar Germany was the loss of ‘logos’.”
This term logos deserves a little unpacking. It’s a Greek word meaning word or reason or structure. In Christianity, the person of Jesus himself is the logos, the plan of creation and salvation.
Dreher continues: “By logos here I don’t mean mainly a religious faith exactly but more a sense of the foundational reality on which the physical universe is built.”
Dreher seeks wisdom in the deepest insights of Hannah Arendt, the great scholar of totalitarianism, whose work focused in part on Weimar Germany. Dreher says: “Hannah Arendt says the biggest factor (predisposing a society to breakdown and extremism) is social atomisation. People attracted to extremism often don’t have close friends or family, or life partners, or attachment to any tradition like Christianity.
“They become free-floating particles with overwhelming existential anxieties.”
This leads, in Dreher’s view, to destructive mental compulsions, to “friend-enemy thinking” that divides the world into a small number of friends and a vast number of enemies. It leads, too, to conspiracy theory thinking.
“There’s also a crisis of social solidarity. There’s been talk of a generation gap since the 1960s. Now the generation gap’s a Grand Canyon. Baby Boomers and Generation X have so much difficulty understanding the world as seen through the eyes of young people.
“The different generations live in their different information silos. Young people have grown up in an environment where everything is fluid. They don’t believe in the traditions and institutions of their society. Because of artificial intelligence and the internet they may not even know what truth is. The core weakness of Weimar Germany was the loss of ‘logos’.”
This term logos deserves a little unpacking. It’s a Greek word meaning word or reason or structure. In Christianity, the person of Jesus himself is the logos, the plan of creation and salvation.
Dreher continues: “By logos here I don’t mean mainly a religious faith exactly but more a sense of the foundational reality on which the physical universe is built.”
Dreher seeks wisdom in the deepest insights of Hannah Arendt, the great scholar of totalitarianism, whose work focused in part on Weimar Germany. Dreher says: “Hannah Arendt says the biggest factor (predisposing a society to breakdown and extremism) is social atomisation. People attracted to extremism often don’t have close friends or family, or life partners, or attachment to any tradition like Christianity.
“They become free-floating particles with overwhelming existential anxieties.”
This leads, in Dreher’s view, to destructive mental compulsions, to “friend-enemy thinking” that divides the world into a small number of friends and a vast number of enemies. It leads, too, to conspiracy theory thinking.
Remember this is in the context of Dreher's own divorce, and then the bizarre news that he was off to Vienna to be close to his son ...
He supported Orbán? He sucked on Orbán's teat? That's an instant disqualification.
But then the onion muncher was a Franco admirer, just like his mentor B. A. Santamaria ... and here we are again ... Orthodox Christian, conservative author and journalist, Rod Dreher says the extreme left and extreme right actually resemble each other. Picture: Hollie Adams/The Australian
And not just Orbán, for a time it seemed that mad King Donald was the answer, because of a bizarre fear of the "woke" ..
So mad King Donald was the answer?
In distrusting all institutions, the isolated and most easily radicalised young people fall prey to belief in conspiracies, which abound online. And whether you’re a nutter on the left or a nutter on the right, when you embrace conspiracies you’ll ultimately embrace the scapegoating and hatred of Jews, if for no other reason than they have been at the centre of conspiracy theories for thousands of years.
This is one reason extreme left and right resemble each other so much.
“When Donald Trump was first elected many of us hoped this would be the end of wokeness, not only because Trump opposed it but because Democrats would see it was discredited,” Dreher reflects.
This is one reason extreme left and right resemble each other so much.
“When Donald Trump was first elected many of us hoped this would be the end of wokeness, not only because Trump opposed it but because Democrats would see it was discredited,” Dreher reflects.
Sorry, the pond was triggered ...
And how did investing in mad King Donald go?
“It didn’t turn out like that. The Democratic Socialists of America are absolutely lunatic on identity politics and they’re winning Democratic primaries with the overwhelming support of young people on the left.” They don’t focus on material questions, Dreher says, as much as they do on identity politics. And of course, he might have added, the performative demonisation of Israel and scapegoating of Zionists, a thin disguise for rank, acrid antisemitism.
People caught up in such madness, Dreher suggests, “come to value transgression for its own sake. Fuentes revels in saying outrageous things.”
People caught up in such madness, Dreher suggests, “come to value transgression for its own sake. Fuentes revels in saying outrageous things.”
And heading off to Hungary to suck on the teat of an authoritarian wasn't outrageous?
Cue a snap designed to terrify the hive mind: Michigan Democratic Senate primary winner Abdul El-Sayed. Picture: Getty Images via AFP
More drivel followed:
All this takes place, Dreher argues, in a vacuum of meaning and authority in the lives of so many young people. The internet enables and accelerates this, as did the experience of Covid lockdowns and social isolation.
“What is happening on the right now is the same as what has been happening on the left for the past 10 or 15 years.”
Dreher has opposed identity politics for a long time: “At the time of (Barack) Obama’s rise I wrote that you can’t valourise identity politics for non-whites without calling forth identity politics for whites. You will call forth demons you can’t even imagine.”
In Dreher’s view, Republicans responded almost as poorly as Democrats: “The Republican Party did a very poor job of trying to understand and respond to the legitimate concerns of young people.” This failure was especially acute regarding young men: “They were told that all men were the problem. It’s impossible to over state how much that has contributed to the resentment of these men. The left presumed that all white men were as weak as the weak white men they saw on campus. They were wrong. They implemented anti-male and anti-white hiring policies.”
Genuine conservatives should never see people primarily in terms of race. But in the US, across the West, the left has succeeded in establishing a public discourse that focuses on features of identity and eliminates or diminishes individual human agency.
This easily leads to zero-sum contests among warring identity groups.
To some extent, this is what’s happening among a disturbingly large number of young conservative white men in the US. The defining quality on far left and far right today is anger, often irrational anger directed at scapegoats. That is very much a Weimar Germany quality, in which street gangs of Nazis and communists did frequent and furious battle. That disorder in the streets was the rationalisation many accepted for Hitler’s assumption of power.
Spectre of the Groypers
In November last year, Dreher was returning to Washington, from his then base in Europe, when a friend told him that perhaps 30 or 40 per cent of young conservative staffers and activists in Washington DC were so-called "groypers".
Groyper is one of the ugliest terms in modern politics. After Christian publicist and campaigner Charlie Kirk was murdered, his widow, Erika, said Kirk’s mission had been to “save the lost boys of the West”.
Fuentes and his ilk had universalised their dislike of Jews and also had come almost to a nihilist view of modern life and politics.
The New Yorker magazine earlier this year quoted a representative rave from a Fuentes follower: “I feel we’ve all been robbed of our innocence. All our buildings are these hideous rectangles. We’ve watched hundreds of hours of hardcore porn before we’ve had our first kiss. Why the f. k did that happen? Do our (Republican) leaders care?”
Fuentes, Owens and others popularised the bizarre idea that Israel had been behind Kirk’s murder. Some of their weirdest musings even implicated his widow. There is no limit to the derangement of this stuff.
“What is happening on the right now is the same as what has been happening on the left for the past 10 or 15 years.”
Dreher has opposed identity politics for a long time: “At the time of (Barack) Obama’s rise I wrote that you can’t valourise identity politics for non-whites without calling forth identity politics for whites. You will call forth demons you can’t even imagine.”
In Dreher’s view, Republicans responded almost as poorly as Democrats: “The Republican Party did a very poor job of trying to understand and respond to the legitimate concerns of young people.” This failure was especially acute regarding young men: “They were told that all men were the problem. It’s impossible to over state how much that has contributed to the resentment of these men. The left presumed that all white men were as weak as the weak white men they saw on campus. They were wrong. They implemented anti-male and anti-white hiring policies.”
Genuine conservatives should never see people primarily in terms of race. But in the US, across the West, the left has succeeded in establishing a public discourse that focuses on features of identity and eliminates or diminishes individual human agency.
This easily leads to zero-sum contests among warring identity groups.
To some extent, this is what’s happening among a disturbingly large number of young conservative white men in the US. The defining quality on far left and far right today is anger, often irrational anger directed at scapegoats. That is very much a Weimar Germany quality, in which street gangs of Nazis and communists did frequent and furious battle. That disorder in the streets was the rationalisation many accepted for Hitler’s assumption of power.
Spectre of the Groypers
In November last year, Dreher was returning to Washington, from his then base in Europe, when a friend told him that perhaps 30 or 40 per cent of young conservative staffers and activists in Washington DC were so-called "groypers".
Groyper is one of the ugliest terms in modern politics. After Christian publicist and campaigner Charlie Kirk was murdered, his widow, Erika, said Kirk’s mission had been to “save the lost boys of the West”.
Fuentes and his ilk had universalised their dislike of Jews and also had come almost to a nihilist view of modern life and politics.
The New Yorker magazine earlier this year quoted a representative rave from a Fuentes follower: “I feel we’ve all been robbed of our innocence. All our buildings are these hideous rectangles. We’ve watched hundreds of hours of hardcore porn before we’ve had our first kiss. Why the f. k did that happen? Do our (Republican) leaders care?”
Fuentes, Owens and others popularised the bizarre idea that Israel had been behind Kirk’s murder. Some of their weirdest musings even implicated his widow. There is no limit to the derangement of this stuff.
Projection, but it always happens when the deranged speak of others being deranged.
Behind all this? The eternal refusal of the reptiles to acknowledge there's an ethnic cleansing going down in Gaza, with that broken clock at least right on that one point, Tucker Carlson with Nick Fuentes. Picture: Facebook
The bromancer seemed startled at just how mainstream all this had become, apparently not realising how loons are constantly attracted to Elvis impersonators:
Yet several years ago Fuentes was an honoured dinner guest with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. And Carlson last October gave Fuentes a respectful two-hour interview was ultimately seen by millions and millions of people. Vance won’t criticise Carlson for that interview or so many other similar performances. Vance, like Trump, seems to have a “no enemies on the right” disposition.
Fuentes and his followers named their Jew-focused group of campaigners Groypers, which they illustrated as a slug-like frog.
At first Dreher couldn’t believe the Groyper phenomenon was so widespread.
And of course it must be remembered that there is a great big mainstream in America, including vast numbers of Christians and many other folks of goodwill, who stoutly reject the extremism of left and right.
Finally Dreher asked: what do these Groypers actually want? The answer is they just want to blow everything up.
That’s nihilism. Without verballing Dreher, I think he is arguing that for nihilism to be replaced in the lives of young people it must be answered with the offer of authentic meaning. That’s one of the jobs ahead for our civilisation. Do we still have the resources we need to do this?
Fuentes and his followers named their Jew-focused group of campaigners Groypers, which they illustrated as a slug-like frog.
At first Dreher couldn’t believe the Groyper phenomenon was so widespread.
And of course it must be remembered that there is a great big mainstream in America, including vast numbers of Christians and many other folks of goodwill, who stoutly reject the extremism of left and right.
Finally Dreher asked: what do these Groypers actually want? The answer is they just want to blow everything up.
That’s nihilism. Without verballing Dreher, I think he is arguing that for nihilism to be replaced in the lives of young people it must be answered with the offer of authentic meaning. That’s one of the jobs ahead for our civilisation. Do we still have the resources we need to do this?
Authentic meaning? You won't find it here, and likely you won't find it in the sweet bye and bye ... but you will find evidence of what News Corp has wrought ...
It's easy to see why the pond gave up the entrees.
Nine bloody minutes of Xian-inflected drivel.
And as a result, there was no time for the likes of Rosemary, doing her own version of the bromancer's dance with Dreher ...
EXCLUSIVE
White, male, female, straight or city-based? You are privileged now
National arts body deems ‘whiteness’ and being male or female a privilege
Australia’s peak visual arts body also considers speaking English and not having caring responsibilities privileges under its taxpayer-subsidised ‘safer spaces’ policy.
By Rosemary Neill
White, male, female, straight or city-based? You are privileged now
National arts body deems ‘whiteness’ and being male or female a privilege
Australia’s peak visual arts body also considers speaking English and not having caring responsibilities privileges under its taxpayer-subsidised ‘safer spaces’ policy.
By Rosemary Neill
The pond knew it was privileged from the get go by the way that Aboriginal people were sent off to get their education in portables across the oval, safely out of sight ...
But no time for that, and no time for Jennings of the fifth form, over on the far right, rabbiting on in his usual way ...
We need to act on growing threat from far-left extremism and its influence on young people
Australia’s domestic norm against the use of violence to achieve political objectives is eroding.
By Peter Jennings
Contributor
Australia’s domestic norm against the use of violence to achieve political objectives is eroding.
By Peter Jennings
Contributor
Sorry vulgar youff, you'll have to spend some quality time with your Jennings saviour on your own ...the pond doesn't even have time to expose you to far-right extremism of the Jennings kind.
The pond is loyal and had its "Ned" Everest to climb, and look this day, he was the third cab off the rank early in the morning ...
There are intermittent links for the first two, as the pond donned its snow boots and mittens and readied for the climb ...
The header: How Labor failures on immigration opened the door to Hanson; The Albanese government is scrambling for an immigration reset as social cohesion crumbles and One Nation’s populist campaign gains ground.
The caption for the wretched collage, with Emilia putting her hand up to cop the blame: Multiculturalism vs. monoculture is the debate tearing Australia apart, with from left, Pauline Hanson, Anthony Albanese, Tony Burke and John Howard all weighing in on an immigration crisis years in the making. Artwork by Emilia Tortorella. Sources: supplied and iStock.
Eleven minutes of "Ned"...after 9 minutes of bro!
That's 20 minutes down the drain, never to be recovered, as "Ned" attempted one of his grand "vision" thingies, edicts issued from on high, while the pond struggled to get past base camp in the climb ...
The Albanese government is belatedly attempting to address Australia’s immigration crisis that has been mounting for years – a crisis of numbers, skills, temporary migrants, overstayers and a decline in social cohesion – with Labor long mired in political and policy misjudgment and complacency.
There is one certainty – Labor’s reset won’t constitute an adequate response to the full scale of challenges and problems. That is almost certainly beyond Labor’s political vision. The government should have acted far earlier and is caught by underestimating the political reaction to the multiple defects in immigration policy.
With Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke being forced to delay his new immigration policy announcement amid concerns at the top of the government, Labor has intensified the pressure on itself as it tries to get greater control of the system, keep driving down net overseas migration numbers, tackle overstayers, eliminate abuses and inoculate itself against Pauline Hanson’s anti-immigration campaign now damaging the ALP vote.
The nation faces a dilemma about the basics of immigration policy and how Australians should live together. It comes amid justified alarm about the high intake, the transformation of the program into a temporary worker model, a decline in government control of the agenda and a deepening conflict over how Australia should successfully manage its exploding diversity – with political leaders sinking into dispute over this issue.
There is one certainty – Labor’s reset won’t constitute an adequate response to the full scale of challenges and problems. That is almost certainly beyond Labor’s political vision. The government should have acted far earlier and is caught by underestimating the political reaction to the multiple defects in immigration policy.
With Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke being forced to delay his new immigration policy announcement amid concerns at the top of the government, Labor has intensified the pressure on itself as it tries to get greater control of the system, keep driving down net overseas migration numbers, tackle overstayers, eliminate abuses and inoculate itself against Pauline Hanson’s anti-immigration campaign now damaging the ALP vote.
The nation faces a dilemma about the basics of immigration policy and how Australians should live together. It comes amid justified alarm about the high intake, the transformation of the program into a temporary worker model, a decline in government control of the agenda and a deepening conflict over how Australia should successfully manage its exploding diversity – with political leaders sinking into dispute over this issue.
Marvel at the way that "Ned" manages to avoid mentioning how News Corp has spent the past decade or more demonising furriners and claiming assorted migrants were rooning the country, doing the spadework for Gina's pet ... Police monitor protesters outside a One Nation event attended by Senator Pauline Hanson in Melbourne on August 4. Picture: The Australian / Luis Enrique Ascui
"Ned's" institutional blindness was on parade ...
Labor now faces difficult competing agendas – business groups warning against damaging cuts to the program, a public hostile to the numbers and now sceptical of immigration at a time of prolonged cost-of-living and housing pressures, and the need to revise policy on temporary migration, visa hopping and appeal rights. Expect much of Labor’s focus to be on people exploiting the system.
Given that Anthony Albanese has recently shifted ground and taken the political offensive on taxation, negative gearing and management of artificial intelligence, the test on immigration is whether he opts merely for cosmetic incrementalism or backs significant policy change.
Don’t think this will deter Hanson. She will double down and exploit any Labor policy change.
Given that Anthony Albanese has recently shifted ground and taken the political offensive on taxation, negative gearing and management of artificial intelligence, the test on immigration is whether he opts merely for cosmetic incrementalism or backs significant policy change.
Don’t think this will deter Hanson. She will double down and exploit any Labor policy change.
‘We don’t need more Uber drivers’
We don't? But that's straight out of the Dame Groan playbook, as when she talked with the dog botherer on what was Sky Noise ...
The Australian Contributing Economics Editor Judith Sloan says “everyone,” including migrants, believes the rate of migrant intake has been “too high”.
Naturally Sky Noise down under, rebranded to steal the ABC's thunder, provides a ready home for that sort of carry on ...
Such actions will need to be balanced by Labor’s embedded political identity – the need to retain the voting support of ethnic communities, honour its pro-immigration progressive ideology and ensure that Labor retains the scope to repudiate Hanson.
Hanson wants to keep immigration as her spearhead issue, so expect a polarising contest. If Labor’s changes are seen as too modest, Hanson will say this confirms Labor is incapable of a genuine reset.
She can dial up the rhetoric with impunity; witness her remarks on News24: “We don’t need any more Uber drivers, nail technicians, dog walkers. These people – gone. Stop all that. There’s between 75,000 and I’ve heard 100,000 people that are in the country illegally at the moment … The taxpayers have had enough of this.”
One Nation’s immigration policy is one of its most radical and dangerous. The written policy involves capping visas at 130,000 – sure to throttle the economy – deport 75,000 illegal immigrants, withdraw from the UN Refugee Convention, impose an eight-year waiting period for citizenship and welfare, deny migrant entry from nations that promote extremist ideology, crack down on student visas and limit the powers of the Administrative Review Tribunal.
The orthodox pitch against Hanson – relying on the traditional support for an immigration program that has long worked in the national interest and enjoyed public support – is weaker than before because of Labor’s complacency. In truth, Labor’s policy failures have opened the door to Hanson.
It's Labor? Oh come on "Ned", credit your fellow reptiles because much credit is due ...Pauline Hanson has been met with protesters as she arrived at the Tower Hotel in Hawthorn
After that AV distraction, safely reduced to a cap, "Ned" got into extensive navel gazing, and the pond just let him rip and riff ...
During the 21st century Australia has conducted a near unprecedented bipartisan experiment in population growth driven by immigration. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show from 2000 to 2024 our population grew by 43 per cent, nearly three times the average growth of OECD industrial nations, with immigration contributing 60 to 70 per cent of total growth and peaking at more than 80 per cent during the post-pandemic surge.
With our 43 per cent growth running at around twice that of the US and Britain, this is the macro story atop a series of astonishing micro figures that suggest the only surprising feature of the current trauma is that it isn’t even more contentious. For instance, about 10 per cent of the nation’s population, or around 2.9 million people, are temporary migrants.
Immigration policy has been transformed in ways most people don’t understand but that only guarantee further division. The current permanent migration program set at 185,000 (roughly split 70-30 per cent between skilled and family reunion), with much of the intake coming from people already onshore, is sidelined by another model with temporary migrants now an indispensable part of our economy.
In the process immigration has becoming essential to our GDP growth since it substitutes for the absence of productivity, but at the moment we suffer from both weaker GDP growth and far weaker GDP per capita.
The critical emerging dilemma is the decline of social cohesion and the loss of confidence in Australia as a unified nation bonded with shared values. Labor and the progressive establishment have turned diversity into an unqualified good – almost a secular faith – seeding an inevitable collision between their ideology and a more balanced view of the national interest. Australia is now divided over what diversity means and how to manage it.
Who are we?
The standard refrain from diversity’s champions is best put by Albanese in his repudiation of Hanson, with the Prime Minister declaring that multiculturalism is “who we are”. That’s clear – multiculturalism is not just a policy, it’s an identity.
For Albanese, it’s also a badge of unity because, apart from the Indigenous peoples, “we’re all either migrants or descendants of migrants in some ways”. The message: in the past we had Ned Kelly, the First AIF, Don Bradman and Paul Hogan – but multiculturalism is forever. Got it?
Usually attacked for his lack of vision, Albanese was filled with vision on this issue: “I think we can be a microcosm for the world at our best, that shows that people of different ethnicities, different faiths, different backgrounds live overwhelming in harmony.” In short, Australia as a model for the world. Albanese happily declares that being multicultural means “we’re loyal to Australia”. That apparently defines the erosion of social cohesion out of existence.
Labor is kidding itself, deceived by its own propaganda.
Nobody has got this right
The current dispute – utterly futile – over whether Australia is a monocultural or a multicultural nation is a flawed debate in a country in danger of losing its way. Here is the grim conclusion: no leader and no party has got this response right.
Given a fertile field for her campaign, Hanson has provoked progressive rage with her declaration that Australia could not be a “multicultural society” but must instead be “monocultural” and live under “one umbrella”. What this means is imprecise, with Hanson later saying our diverse Socceroos team constituted her vision of a “monocultural Australia” with the players united under one nation and one flag.
But Hanson leaves no doubt about her real target: “One Nation is dedicated to fighting against radical Islam and the obvious threat it represents to the peace of our country” – a statement most Australians would endorse – while saying she seeks to prioritise traditions, the English language and the Judaeo-Christian heritage.
With our 43 per cent growth running at around twice that of the US and Britain, this is the macro story atop a series of astonishing micro figures that suggest the only surprising feature of the current trauma is that it isn’t even more contentious. For instance, about 10 per cent of the nation’s population, or around 2.9 million people, are temporary migrants.
Immigration policy has been transformed in ways most people don’t understand but that only guarantee further division. The current permanent migration program set at 185,000 (roughly split 70-30 per cent between skilled and family reunion), with much of the intake coming from people already onshore, is sidelined by another model with temporary migrants now an indispensable part of our economy.
In the process immigration has becoming essential to our GDP growth since it substitutes for the absence of productivity, but at the moment we suffer from both weaker GDP growth and far weaker GDP per capita.
The critical emerging dilemma is the decline of social cohesion and the loss of confidence in Australia as a unified nation bonded with shared values. Labor and the progressive establishment have turned diversity into an unqualified good – almost a secular faith – seeding an inevitable collision between their ideology and a more balanced view of the national interest. Australia is now divided over what diversity means and how to manage it.
Who are we?
The standard refrain from diversity’s champions is best put by Albanese in his repudiation of Hanson, with the Prime Minister declaring that multiculturalism is “who we are”. That’s clear – multiculturalism is not just a policy, it’s an identity.
For Albanese, it’s also a badge of unity because, apart from the Indigenous peoples, “we’re all either migrants or descendants of migrants in some ways”. The message: in the past we had Ned Kelly, the First AIF, Don Bradman and Paul Hogan – but multiculturalism is forever. Got it?
Usually attacked for his lack of vision, Albanese was filled with vision on this issue: “I think we can be a microcosm for the world at our best, that shows that people of different ethnicities, different faiths, different backgrounds live overwhelming in harmony.” In short, Australia as a model for the world. Albanese happily declares that being multicultural means “we’re loyal to Australia”. That apparently defines the erosion of social cohesion out of existence.
Labor is kidding itself, deceived by its own propaganda.
Nobody has got this right
The current dispute – utterly futile – over whether Australia is a monocultural or a multicultural nation is a flawed debate in a country in danger of losing its way. Here is the grim conclusion: no leader and no party has got this response right.
Given a fertile field for her campaign, Hanson has provoked progressive rage with her declaration that Australia could not be a “multicultural society” but must instead be “monocultural” and live under “one umbrella”. What this means is imprecise, with Hanson later saying our diverse Socceroos team constituted her vision of a “monocultural Australia” with the players united under one nation and one flag.
But Hanson leaves no doubt about her real target: “One Nation is dedicated to fighting against radical Islam and the obvious threat it represents to the peace of our country” – a statement most Australians would endorse – while saying she seeks to prioritise traditions, the English language and the Judaeo-Christian heritage.
... which is exactly what the pond reads daily in the lizard Oz, you known endless interminable blather about prioritising traditions, the English language and the Judaeo-Christian heritage, to the point where the pond has had more than a gut full or three, but do go on, ...
The claims that Hanson hasn’t changed in 30 years miss the point. While still exposed to the accusation of racism, she now pitches to a country where social cohesion is declining and the reality of Islamist threats, intolerance and antisemitism create a mood more susceptible to her appeals.
‘Mr Practical’ joins the debate
This week John Howard entered the fray. He came as Mr Practical, saying the current debate was “pointless”. Howard said people didn’t really know what “monoculture” meant given our long accepted diverse immigration program, but he still felt the word “multicultural” had the uncomfortable connotation of “a nation of tribes”.
Howard conceded his government did not completely abandon its use by preferring the term “Australian multiculturalism”, saying this stressed “the unifying elements of Australian citizenship irrespective of ethnic origins”. In effect, this was a patch-up compromise that did the job. But it seems to have left the Liberal Party in a current state of equivocation when, given the contradictory boldness of Albanese and Hanson, conceptual clarity is needed from the Liberals on how Australians should live together.
The lying rodent has been reinvented as "Mr Practical"?
The man who lost not just government but his own seat, is now a font of wisdom? John Howard and Pauline Hanson. Howard says the current debate on multiculturalism is ‘pointless’.
Here's the real problem for the reptiles.
Labor might have had its problem, but Gina's pampered pet (nine hundred bucks for a hotel room) has stolen the beefy boofhead's thunder ...
Angus Taylor has pledged to cut numbers and lift standards to enforce Australian values. But the Opposition Leader faltered when pressed on Hanson’s assault on multiculturalism, initially refusing to support the concept much to the alarm of many Liberal MPs, before backing a “version of multiculturalism” but not Hanson’s monoculture. How the Liberals define and would enforce Australian values is not fully explained.
Deputy leader Jane Hume said Australia was already a multicultural society and took aim at the opposing sides: “I reject the politics of identity of the left on multiculturalism but, my goodness, I also reject the policy of cultural fear on the right.” It reminds of the middle position the Liberals must try to sell.
Labor’s inability to contain the number of arrivals has only accentuated the mono-multi misleading debate. The government keeps overshooting its targets – net overseas migration reached 538,340 and 429,000 in the two years post-Covid and Labor’s aim to cut the numbers to 225,000 still remains a forlorn goal.
One of multiculturalism’s principles – that the animosities of the originating nation cannot be transplanted to Australia – is trashed almost daily. The tensions from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are about identity, existence and religion and are being played out globally, including in Australia.
No respite from antisemitism
The breakdown of the social order reveals a changing Australia. The Bondi massacre with its 15 victims was the worse killing of Jews in any Western democracy since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, the upshot being a royal commission to investigate antisemitism and its drivers, and to recommend on measures to counter rising ideological and religious extremism in Australia. But since Bondi there has been no respite from antisemitism, with its prevalence more apparent than ever across educational, cultural and community institutions.
Incredibly, it is still not recognised that antisemitism, while sui generis, is partly driven by a re-coding of progressive political morality that demonises Jews by falsely casting Israel as a white, racist, colonial-settler nation – and that similar ideological arguments are already invoked from within to undermine Australia’s legitimacy, self-identity and cultural unity.
Deputy leader Jane Hume said Australia was already a multicultural society and took aim at the opposing sides: “I reject the politics of identity of the left on multiculturalism but, my goodness, I also reject the policy of cultural fear on the right.” It reminds of the middle position the Liberals must try to sell.
Labor’s inability to contain the number of arrivals has only accentuated the mono-multi misleading debate. The government keeps overshooting its targets – net overseas migration reached 538,340 and 429,000 in the two years post-Covid and Labor’s aim to cut the numbers to 225,000 still remains a forlorn goal.
One of multiculturalism’s principles – that the animosities of the originating nation cannot be transplanted to Australia – is trashed almost daily. The tensions from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are about identity, existence and religion and are being played out globally, including in Australia.
No respite from antisemitism
The breakdown of the social order reveals a changing Australia. The Bondi massacre with its 15 victims was the worse killing of Jews in any Western democracy since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, the upshot being a royal commission to investigate antisemitism and its drivers, and to recommend on measures to counter rising ideological and religious extremism in Australia. But since Bondi there has been no respite from antisemitism, with its prevalence more apparent than ever across educational, cultural and community institutions.
Incredibly, it is still not recognised that antisemitism, while sui generis, is partly driven by a re-coding of progressive political morality that demonises Jews by falsely casting Israel as a white, racist, colonial-settler nation – and that similar ideological arguments are already invoked from within to undermine Australia’s legitimacy, self-identity and cultural unity.
Hang on, hang on, what about a respite from ethnic cleansing? C.f. Haaretz ...
Israel's 'Total Victory' Means Endless War
Faced with failure, Israel has embraced Vietnamization – entrenching itself in newly occupied territories and calling it victory
Zvi Bar'el
Faced with failure, Israel has embraced Vietnamization – entrenching itself in newly occupied territories and calling it victory
Zvi Bar'el
Inter alia ...
...Israel has taken control of about 600 square kilometers in Lebanon and another 235 square kilometers in Syria since the fall of the Bashar Assad regime. It occupies about 70 percent of the Gaza Strip and the entire West Bank is de facto occupied territory. This system has lengthened the country's borders and expanded and deepened the areas of friction and conflict with a hostile population, international organizations and foreign armies. It only creates the illusion that security is within reach.
The truth is this is neither the result of a military doctrine nor a temporary operation intended to ward off an immediate threat or as a step toward a diplomatic solution.
When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talks about staying in Lebanon or Gaza "as long as needed," and Defense Minister Israel Katz "orders" the construction of a base in Lebanon "as if we're going to stay there for 50 years," they are formulating an ideology that reduces Israel to a logistical center whose purpose is to supply soldiers and maintain the occupied territories forever. That, in turn, is closely connected with another principle, which holds that the destruction of the foundations of democracy and the elimination of the political, economic and cultural horizon of its citizens are only collateral damage. After all, the state is the sum of its territories, not the sum of its citizens.
The truth is this is neither the result of a military doctrine nor a temporary operation intended to ward off an immediate threat or as a step toward a diplomatic solution.
When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talks about staying in Lebanon or Gaza "as long as needed," and Defense Minister Israel Katz "orders" the construction of a base in Lebanon "as if we're going to stay there for 50 years," they are formulating an ideology that reduces Israel to a logistical center whose purpose is to supply soldiers and maintain the occupied territories forever. That, in turn, is closely connected with another principle, which holds that the destruction of the foundations of democracy and the elimination of the political, economic and cultural horizon of its citizens are only collateral damage. After all, the state is the sum of its territories, not the sum of its citizens.
And again ...
A Year After a Settler Shot Awdah Hathaleen, His Village Still Can't Mourn in Peace
'Since Awdah was killed, there has been no place for joy in our lives. The joy in our hearts has gone out'
Abby Seitzand Nagham Zbeedat
'Since Awdah was killed, there has been no place for joy in our lives. The joy in our hearts has gone out'
Abby Seitzand Nagham Zbeedat
Israeli army and police forces disrupted a memorial ceremony held in the West Bank village of Umm al-Khair on Tuesday to mark one year since Awdah Hathaleen, a 30-year-old father of three, was shot dead on the basketball court by an Israeli settler standing 30 meters away.
The Palestinian Bedouin village, located in the South Hebron Hills region, is familiar with being robbed of its ability to mourn. Last summer, more than 60 women from Umm al-Khair held an 11-day hunger strike to demand that Israel release Awdah's body for burial, which the state complied with – on the condition that the funeral be limited to 15 attendees and conducted at night away from the village.
The community of 200 people, roughly half of whom are children, this year intentionally planned a small ceremony, extending invitations to only a few dozen longtime friends of the village from Israel and abroad, out of the thousands of people who Awdah welcomed to visit the village over the years.
"Ultimately, we live under a brutal occupation that respects neither memorials nor death, loss or any human right, so we tried to keep it small," Awdah's cousin Tariq Hathaleen, 31, tells Haaretz.
The Palestinian Bedouin village, located in the South Hebron Hills region, is familiar with being robbed of its ability to mourn. Last summer, more than 60 women from Umm al-Khair held an 11-day hunger strike to demand that Israel release Awdah's body for burial, which the state complied with – on the condition that the funeral be limited to 15 attendees and conducted at night away from the village.
The community of 200 people, roughly half of whom are children, this year intentionally planned a small ceremony, extending invitations to only a few dozen longtime friends of the village from Israel and abroad, out of the thousands of people who Awdah welcomed to visit the village over the years.
"Ultimately, we live under a brutal occupation that respects neither memorials nor death, loss or any human right, so we tried to keep it small," Awdah's cousin Tariq Hathaleen, 31, tells Haaretz.
And so on and on and on, but look at how "Ned" shamelessly skews it ...
The conflicts over antisemitism and Islamophobia are just related to the Jewish and Muslim communities. The issues at stake and the politics being deployed affect the entire Australian nation. This is not a story in isolation. It is revealing the inadequacy of our multiculturalism theory and practice. There is genuine public concern about a minority arriving hostile to Australian core values and living in religious tribes that are sceptical or hostile to such values.
The upshot is obvious: a schism in the country between ideological advocates of diversity and ideological fears that Australia’s character and values are being eroded.
The upshot is obvious: a schism in the country between ideological advocates of diversity and ideological fears that Australia’s character and values are being eroded.
Being troubled by meaningless deaths in Gaza, or by meaningless deaths in Bondi, is eroding Australia's character and values? Mourners lay flowers at Bondi Pavilion to honour the 15 victims of last Sunday's attack. Picture: Tom Parrish
And so to "Ned's" "solutions, and the pond again let him rant ...
Amid all these contentions, the shape of the fundamental reforms needed are not hard to discern.
Immigration urgently needs to be restored to the national interest in terms of lower numbers and priority skills; temporary migration demands better planning and revised policy; the “monoculture” slogan – never an accurate post-1788 label for this country – needs to be thrown into the bin; the reality of being a multicultural society is here to stay and efforts to cancel the concept won’t work; but champions of diversity for its own sake should grasp their driving ideology is flawed and will increasingly undermine Australia; and, above all, advocates of the status quo – strong immigration tied to multiculturalism – need to recognise this agenda works only when linked to promotion of a civic-minded Australian unity and patriotism that, these days, seems improbable given the embedded “black-armband” view of our history.
Unless it surprises, Labor seems hostage to progressive culture that prioritises diversity over unity and also hostage to ethnic support as pivotal to its election survival. As my colleague Henry Ergas has written, the forces in Australia promoting integration as opposed to separatism are now weaker than ever: “Thanks partly to the miracles of modern communications, it is now entirely possible to live in separate communities, completely immersed in one’s culture of origin and hostile to the culture of the country in which one has chosen to actually live.”
Ergas quoted the late, great American political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset identifying an eternal truth: “Wherever the social structure operates so as to isolate individuals or groups from contact with those who hold different views, the isolated individuals or groups tend to back political extremists.”
The Scanlon Foundation 2025 Mapping Social Cohesion report, based on 8000 interviews, found strong support for multiculturalism at 83 per cent, with 67 per cent saying accepting migrants from many countries made Australian stronger. But attitudes varied according to the religion of migrants. A total of 35 per cent had negative attitudes towards Muslim migration as opposed to only 16 per cent being positive. In relation to Christian migrants 38 per cent were positive and 18 per cent negative.
National pride’s retreat
Significantly, people don’t want official support to help migrants maintain their original culture, with only 33 per cent agreeing with this idea. The conclusion: the public expects migrants to accept the norms of Australian life. Herein is the problem with multiculturalism: it has been relentlessly recast over the years to legitimise diversity over unity, raising the danger of Australia becoming a nation of subcultures.
National pride in Australia is in distinct retreat. The survey showed only 46 per cent of people felt a strong sense of belonging in Australia, with only 34 per cent taking pride in the Australian way of life and culture. These numbers have fallen sharply across the past five years. Millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) with a strong sense of belonging fell from 64 per cent across 2010-12 to 34 per cent in 2025.
One of the most penetrating surveys on attitudes towards migrants was published in 2025 by John Burn-Murdoch in the Financial Times, finding that politicians “have become misaligned from the public on immigration and integration”. On the question “immigrants should be required to adapt to the customs of this country”, public agreement ran at 87 per cent in Britain, 75 per cent in Germany, 74 per cent in the Netherlands and 61 per cent in Sweden. Yet the numbers for politicians on the same question were respectively 47 per cent, 33 per cent, 43 per cent and 34 per cent.
The Gulf between the political class and the public in Australia is probably not as large – but the gulf is still real. Australia has long been a standout for acceptance of large-scale immigration based on legal entry. As an island nation Australia, unlike most developed nations, can impose border controls, thereby avoiding the current plight of Britain facing mass illegal arrivals by boat. Yet Australia, dealing only with legal migration, has still managed to leave itself exposed in economic and social terms.
Politics in the coming decade will see strong populist forces on both the right and left with immigration policy often trapped in the middle. The future will also be shaped by how Muslim political identify will evolve both inside and outside the established parties.
As astute politicians, Labor leaders would know there is a rising tide for national identity. It is driven by a more dangerous world, the emphasis on state power and citizenship, higher defence spending, a priority on national security, a rising mood of patriotism and the realisation that a civic culture bonded by share values is an essential condition for a nation’s success. Thinking diversity is enough and an unqualified virtue won’t work in this world.
Immigration urgently needs to be restored to the national interest in terms of lower numbers and priority skills; temporary migration demands better planning and revised policy; the “monoculture” slogan – never an accurate post-1788 label for this country – needs to be thrown into the bin; the reality of being a multicultural society is here to stay and efforts to cancel the concept won’t work; but champions of diversity for its own sake should grasp their driving ideology is flawed and will increasingly undermine Australia; and, above all, advocates of the status quo – strong immigration tied to multiculturalism – need to recognise this agenda works only when linked to promotion of a civic-minded Australian unity and patriotism that, these days, seems improbable given the embedded “black-armband” view of our history.
Unless it surprises, Labor seems hostage to progressive culture that prioritises diversity over unity and also hostage to ethnic support as pivotal to its election survival. As my colleague Henry Ergas has written, the forces in Australia promoting integration as opposed to separatism are now weaker than ever: “Thanks partly to the miracles of modern communications, it is now entirely possible to live in separate communities, completely immersed in one’s culture of origin and hostile to the culture of the country in which one has chosen to actually live.”
Ergas quoted the late, great American political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset identifying an eternal truth: “Wherever the social structure operates so as to isolate individuals or groups from contact with those who hold different views, the isolated individuals or groups tend to back political extremists.”
The Scanlon Foundation 2025 Mapping Social Cohesion report, based on 8000 interviews, found strong support for multiculturalism at 83 per cent, with 67 per cent saying accepting migrants from many countries made Australian stronger. But attitudes varied according to the religion of migrants. A total of 35 per cent had negative attitudes towards Muslim migration as opposed to only 16 per cent being positive. In relation to Christian migrants 38 per cent were positive and 18 per cent negative.
National pride’s retreat
Significantly, people don’t want official support to help migrants maintain their original culture, with only 33 per cent agreeing with this idea. The conclusion: the public expects migrants to accept the norms of Australian life. Herein is the problem with multiculturalism: it has been relentlessly recast over the years to legitimise diversity over unity, raising the danger of Australia becoming a nation of subcultures.
National pride in Australia is in distinct retreat. The survey showed only 46 per cent of people felt a strong sense of belonging in Australia, with only 34 per cent taking pride in the Australian way of life and culture. These numbers have fallen sharply across the past five years. Millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) with a strong sense of belonging fell from 64 per cent across 2010-12 to 34 per cent in 2025.
One of the most penetrating surveys on attitudes towards migrants was published in 2025 by John Burn-Murdoch in the Financial Times, finding that politicians “have become misaligned from the public on immigration and integration”. On the question “immigrants should be required to adapt to the customs of this country”, public agreement ran at 87 per cent in Britain, 75 per cent in Germany, 74 per cent in the Netherlands and 61 per cent in Sweden. Yet the numbers for politicians on the same question were respectively 47 per cent, 33 per cent, 43 per cent and 34 per cent.
The Gulf between the political class and the public in Australia is probably not as large – but the gulf is still real. Australia has long been a standout for acceptance of large-scale immigration based on legal entry. As an island nation Australia, unlike most developed nations, can impose border controls, thereby avoiding the current plight of Britain facing mass illegal arrivals by boat. Yet Australia, dealing only with legal migration, has still managed to leave itself exposed in economic and social terms.
Politics in the coming decade will see strong populist forces on both the right and left with immigration policy often trapped in the middle. The future will also be shaped by how Muslim political identify will evolve both inside and outside the established parties.
As astute politicians, Labor leaders would know there is a rising tide for national identity. It is driven by a more dangerous world, the emphasis on state power and citizenship, higher defence spending, a priority on national security, a rising mood of patriotism and the realisation that a civic culture bonded by share values is an essential condition for a nation’s success. Thinking diversity is enough and an unqualified virtue won’t work in this world.
The pond's sense of national pride was soiled the moment that the Emeritus Chairman took the title of The Australian and used it as a home for a bunch of far right ratbags, endlessly rabbiting on about a faux kind of patriotism which promoted division and discrimination, down there with the likes of Viktor...
To be fair, there were others who helped the reptiles in that mission, and isn't karma a fine thing ...
Elbows up Canada, as the pond calls it a Sharri day ...
