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A requiem to neo liberalism

With the political scalping of Malcolm Turnbull in last August’s Liberal leadership spill, one is wont to muse on whether the demise of Turnbull also represents the demise of neo liberalism. There is no better representative of modern liberalism than the corporate banker come Liberal politician, Turnbull, who supported large corporate tax breaks, resisted until it was futile the calls for a Banking Royal Commission, and who was, all in all, a keen advocate of free markets. Those from within the Liberal Party ranks who describe Turnbull as “not one of us” have perhaps already left the moors of the economic liberalism that pervaded the Liberal Party in the 80s and 90s, when it was the HR Nicholls Society, and not the conservative shock jocks of today, prodding the Liberals to move further to their version of the ‘right’. Indeed, it was not until John Howard’s tenure as leader that we saw the Liberal Party move towards a more nationalist disposition, where Howard’s notion of a broad chur...
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The Truth Usurper

This essay relates the rise of Donald Trump to the displacement of the Industrial Age by the Information Age, and explores how Trump’s anti knowledge posture is seen as empowering by those who are left behind in the new world of IT billionaires, globalisation and neo-liberalism. Trump’s attacks on progressivism in general, and political correctness in particular, is sharpened by his attacks on truth itself, devaluing a commodity held dear by the college educated elites, but seen as dispensable by the Trump base of non suburban whites. Whilst the preponderance of media focus is dedicated to the activities and intrigues surrounding President Donald Trump, the question remains: how did Trump muster the electoral college votes to win the presidency? An analysis of the forces that brought Trump to power would seem to be a far larger story than Trump himself, particularly when one considers that, without an understanding of the electoral landscape that delivered the presidency to Trump, o...
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What would the American Marius look like?

Since the rise to prominence of Donald Trump in the GOP Primaries, the question on many disbelieving political players and pundits’ minds is: what is driving the Republican electorate away from the establishment conservative candidates and towards the unconventional Donald Trump? What is their beef? As has been well laid out by the commentary, there is a disaffected white middle class that has seen its interests inexorably decline over the last 16 years resulting in an angry electorate looking to shake up Washington. But here’s where the commentary, particularly on the conservative side, starts to become confused. To some, conservative politicians have not been conservative enough nor consistent enough. In a sentence, they have not been consistently conservative enough, a line toed by Ted Cruz and his supporters. But the disenchantment is also purportedly fed by the functional breakdown in Washington, its inability to get things done, which is surely the consequence of the dogmatic...
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Behold the rise of the outsiders! A Seismic Shift in the Axis of US Politics

Behold the rise of the outsiders! What should we take from the rise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in the Republican and Democratic Presidential Primaries, respectively? For one thing, it indicates that there is a distinct possibility that a candidate that is not only an outsider to the mainstream political parties but also somebody who eschews the political process will become the next president of the United States. And that will be no small thing. But there is a broader view to consider in response to the rise of the outsiders, particularly when we add to the picture the support also received by Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina during the Republican Primary. Is the rise of Trump and Sanders an aberration, confined to the political dynamics of the 2016 US Presidential Campaign? I suspect that the majority of us regard this phenomenon as an unusual blip in the lifecycle of US politics. One may expect, whether Trump or Sanders makes it all the way to the presidency or not, a retur...
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Mission Impossible: Democratization by Deceit

The Ends Based on the objectives, there can no longer be any doubt that the Coalition of the Willing has lost the war in Iraq. The only remaining question is which way the coalition should cut its losses; whether it should cut and run or slog it out in the hope that Iraq does not remain a failed state racked by civil strife and home to terrorist organizations with ill-intent towards the US and its allies. The invasion of Iraq has clearly failed in terms of the stated objectives. The coalition has failed in its objective to remove the weapons of mass destruction from the dangerous hands of the Iraqi regime because they were not in those hands. The other objective persistently underlined by the leading proponents of the war was to strike at the terrorist threat being offered by Islamic fundamentalists. However, by invading Iraq, a second front has been opened where it did not exist, and where once the US and its allies were on the front foot against al Qaeda, they are now simply holding ...
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