The confusions of anti-politics: US edition

Monday, 1 February 2016   International relations   6 comments 

The pitch. Our country is in serious trouble. We don’t have victories anymore. We used to have victories, but we don’t have them. When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let’s say China in a trade deal? I beat China all the time. All the time. Republican and US Presidential front-runner Donald Trump […]

The ties that bind

Tuesday, 22 April 2014   State of the parties   14 comments 

This is moving towards something new: cutting any overt links to social groups and special interests and formalising the detachment of the political system from voters that is already there.

Unity – an update

Monday, 14 October 2013   Political figures, State of the parties   15 comments 

Into a vacuum could step somebody that has never made a point of standing for anything (or behind anyone) in particular. From that angle, Labor might have just found its best candidate.

Relief

Monday, 9 September 2013   State of the parties   22 comments 

The end of that tension in Labor is because Rudd’s failure has meant there is now no one in Labor who can turn an attack on the party’s existing power structures into an electoral asset.

AdWatch: Labor’s negative ads

Sunday, 25 August 2013   Tactics   4 comments 

The debate showed how much Rudd, rather than maintain the aura of incumbency he so well established when he returned, has needed to take up the negativity himself. Shouldn’t the ads be doing that?

Realignment

Tuesday, 30 July 2013   State of the parties   14 comments 

The political agenda we see now are the leftovers from a time when the major parties represented clear social bases in the electorate which they no longer do.

The Rudd effect

Monday, 1 July 2013   Media analysis, Political figures, Tactics   53 comments 

The lack of a convincing reason on the source of Rudd’s popularity, is not because political commentators are thick, but because the answer is uncomfortable.

The problem of the “political cycle”

Sunday, 8 April 2012   Key posts, Media analysis, State of the parties   31 comments 

Politics is becoming more cyclical, but only because the nature of politics is changing from what it was in the 20th century.

What a hollowing out looks like

Monday, 28 November 2011   International relations, State of the parties   10 comments 

If the EU-appointed technocrat governments have no legitimacy, neither do the Parliaments that voted them in.

Rudd, the anti-politics campaigner – Reprise?

Thursday, 29 September 2011   Political figures   7 comments 

This is a struggle over the dead soul of the Labor party.

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