Civility and the status quo

The automatic operation of institutional power in a democracy

A version of this piece appeared originally in The Market Herald.

One the main points I make in Voices of Us is that, although the May 2022 election was a culmination of changes to Australian voting habits building over many years, and that the Liberal Party had been crushed in a way previously unimaginable, corporate and establishment power would not allow itself to go unrepresented for long:

For now, we are in a moment of flux, and we won’t know until the next election the true significance of the last one. If we watch closely, we can see the way in which political power is evolving, how a new third force is asserting itself, as well as how the status quo is protecting itself in the face of change. This can teach us a lot about the direction in which the country will move in the years ahead, and every decision and response taken now is part of a bigger debate about the sort of country we want to be.

I have nonetheless been astounded at the force with which the status quo has pushed bac…