Political Big Picture: Debt and Immigration Are Breaking the Hold of Centrism and Political Correctness, by Jennifer Oriel.
The rise of conservative and nationalist movements signals an end to the world order sown by the governments of Tony Blair’s New Labour and the neo-conservative Bush family dynasty. …
Centrism was built on a compromise between the traditional Left and Right. The centrist Left leaned away from socialism and protectionism in favour of capitalism and free trade; right-leaning centrists retreated from conservative morality and a non-interventionist foreign policy for more liberal social values and transnational governance.
Centrists were heralded as the new pragmatists whose bipartisanship would end the age of ideologies.
The political deal went bust when serial financial crises rocked the West and the establishment didn’t adjust.
Rather than respond to record national debts with tax incentives for wealth creators, and instituting small government by slashing expenditure on ineffective social policies, bloated bureaucracies and welfarist immigration programs, centrists drove the West deeper into debt.
The other major issue that broke centrism was immigration. The no-borders policy of the left to increase the number of welfare-dependent and leftist voters in the West is an extremely bad deal in the long term for society, in return for a few leftist votes now. Likewise running up debt causes a major long term problem, in return for a few dollars for votes now. Two short sighted policies that have ended centrism.
In both cases, the population generally wants a more conservative solution — live within our means, and preserve Western native populations with their high-trust culture.
Instead of curbing the growth of taxpayer-funded activism in the media, the law, schools and universities, centrists adopted political correctness as their guiding faith. Cue the rise of the populists. …
They campaigned for the primacy of Western civilisation and Christian morality, and advocated a radical reduction in government spending and the elimination of political correctness. …
If conservative and nationalist politicians become more established across Europe and Trump scores early wins in the US, it will be increasingly difficult for centrists leading other Western democracies to hold court.
Australian politics:
Labor and the Greens are uniting to wage a culture war against Turnbull in the new year. They will try to resurrect the gay marriage debate after they cruelled the Coalition’s election commitment to the plebiscite on marriage reform. Turnbull advocated the plebiscite while openly endorsing gay marriage. If the parliamentary vote were to occur with the likely outcome of marriage reform, Turnbull’s social progressivism will be emphasised at a time when popular conservatism is on the rise.
The second contentious cultural issue that the green-Left plans to exploit for political capital is free speech. … The Coalition aims to amend or repeal section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act to restore free speech and remove feelings as an acceptable evidentiary standard. Labor and the Greens are straining to present the proposed amendment as a boon to their bogeyman of choice: the “hard Right”. Once again, Turnbull made a critical political error on the question of 18C repeal. Rather than defend free speech as a fundamental value of Western civilisation, a vital precondition of free society and human progress, he blunted it with a utilitarian calculus by stating it wouldn’t create more jobs. …
Turnbull has adapted in one critical area by prosecuting conservative border security policy, but he closes the year in a compromised position on key reforms and cultural values.
