It's not about the Liberal Party

It's about how the country has changed

One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing.

—Oscar Wilde

The Liberal’s loss of Aston in last weekend’s by-election has provided yet another excuse for the political class—the media in particular—to wring its hands about the future of Liberal Party.

Will it survive? Can it survive? Can it not survive? Survival, what even is that? And other riveting speculations.

Some are also keen to remind us that the Liberal party has been in dire straits before and managed to uncircle the drain and jump back out of the sink, so don’t write them off yet!

The eternal cry of centrist commentators mistaking memory for insight.

The thing is, what is happening in Australian politics isn’t about the Liberals, though obviously their fate is implicated. What we are seeing is various forces that have been building for forty odd years working themselves out in ways predictable and not, in what amounts to a shift in the entire political landscape, not just the fate of one part(y…