Are we governed by ‘Karens’?

For the uninitiated, a ‘Karen’ is a synecdoche for a type of affluent and out-of-touch woman who tends to be tertiary educated, of Anglo-European extraction, and in possession of all the ‘right’ political opinions. Our Karens live in upmarket urban areas, are professionally employed, and are often found with their male equivalent: a ‘Kevin’. Karens and Kevins have little idea of rural life, the economics of a real economy, and rarely leave their inner-city enclaves. In short, our Karens and Kevins are pampered hypocrites.

A look at the Lower House confirms that Australia is living in a ‘Karenocracy’.

On top of the 77 seats held by the ALP, the Greens hold a further four, while the newly-minted ‘Teal independents’ – as privileged a group as you’ll ever see – hold another ten. A majority of Australians are thus represented by the new left-liberal elite with the sole consolation that the ALP’s slim majority enables them to govern in their own right rather than be held hostage by the Teals.

And our Karens are conspicuous in their political proclivities. They stand for immediate action on Climate Change, no matter the impracticalities or costs. Yet this is just one part of a broader left-liberal program. Members of this group admit as much, as ex-ABC reporter, Teal independent, and member for Goldstein, Zoe Daniel remarks: the Teals are ‘professional women, of a similar age, with a lot of capacity, who have got to the point where they want to step in and do something’. With that ‘something’ being more left-liberalism including advocacy for more women in Parliament and more action on gender equality acting alongside their two main desires for an independent integrity commission and decisive action on Climate Change.

The all-female Teal independents are utterly indicative of our new political posture. For one, Wentworth’s Allegra Spender, the daughter of fashion icon Carla Zampatti, has been vocal in her desire to increase immigration. While Dr Monique Ryan – the woman who defeated Josh Frydenberg in Kooyong – is described in a typically fawning piece as a ‘top medical researcher, paediatric neurologist, and professor’, who lives ‘in a quiet street’ in Hawthorn with her pet dog ‘Alfie the cavoodle’. A description that’s so laughably symbolic of our liberal zeitgeist it’s almost a cliché… The good doctor has been quick to make her federal mark too, with her recent hectoring demands of those opposite to wear face masks: an exhortation which is entirely oblivious of the minimal efficacy of the average mask and the public’s total Covid fatigue. 

So what? Some may say. Left-liberalism is regnant globally and supposedly emblematic of our increased enlightenment and social progress. What’s the problem? The problem is our Karens and Kevins are utter hypocrites.

As is the case across the West, the Karen is emblematic of a leftist establishment that maintains its power through cynical socially-progressive posturing. No matter the absurdity of their claims, our Karens aim to hold high office as they remain frighteningly aloof from the disasters that unfold in their wake.

Karens barely practice what they preach. Take the issues of wealth, for example. If they were true to their word, Karens would live in one of our many poorer electorates. They’d do for real what ex-NSW Premier and ALP election candidate, Kristina Keneally, only feigned during the recent campaign: that is, they’d leave their coastal enclaves and shift permanently to our poorer interior. A place that is in a much greater need of their assistance. This is not what we find, with Teals representing some of the wealthiest electorates in Australia, such as Sydney’s Wentworth and Melbourne’s Goldstein.

Relatedly are the issues of ‘diversity, inclusion, and equity’. If the Teals were as interested in diversity and ‘equal representation’ as they profess, wouldn’t they move closer to it? Yet not only are their electorates some of the wealthiest in Australia, but they are also some of the least culturally and linguistically diverse. With the Teals operating under the maxim of ‘diversity for thee, but not for me’. 

If the Teals truly cared about these issues, wouldn’t they also trade places with a more deserving candidate? Wouldn’t a more ‘authentic Karen’ – that is, someone who actually assists the disadvantaged and lives among them – be more like Dai Le, the ethnically-Vietnamese ex-refugee who defeated Keneally in the seat of Fowler? Moreover, wouldn’t a figure like the Liberal Indigenous senator Jacinta Price be better situated across the aisle?

Such sentiment is further evident in what Karen and Kevin expect for their progeny. The the purported benefits of diversity and ‘social justice’ are to be found in Australia’s public school system, given our multicultural character. Yet these developments are ones that Karen and Kevin want junior to avoid at all costs. A 2016 article in Melbourne’s leftist Age made an unsurprising comment about the hypocrisy about the city’s affluent inner-north.

As the article observes:

In the Greens-voting socially liberal enclaves of the inner north, white middle-class families have deserted the schools closest to the remaining [heavily migrant] commission housing towers, while competing for spots in a handful of schools seen to have greater prestige.

The article further adds that ‘families with higher incomes are opting to enrol their children in over-subscribed schools a few suburbs away. [Favouring] Clifton Hill, Princes Hill, and Merri Creek primary schools, where 79 to 84 per cent of families are among the state’s richest’ and where ‘just 10 to 30 per cent of students [speak] a language other than English at home’.

These sentiments are evident in all manner of other fields. Take energy and transport, for instance.

Wouldn’t a genuinely compassionate policy involve addressing our sky-high utility prices? A trend that is now regressive as our Karens are barely affected by these price rises whilst many in poorer areas are unable to heat their homes on account of our exorbitant utility costs. Could we not extend the pause on the fuel excise as well? And on that note, what chance is there of getting the Teals and their constituents to give up their gas-guzzling foreign 4x4s for a week? Indeed, even to pose the question is to answer it.

The deeper problem with our leftist masters is their public advocacy for liberalism as they seek to avoid its baleful effects themselves. On any number of measures – monogamy over polyamory; private over public education; analogue over digital – our left-liberal overlords enact the former as they espouse the latter. They’re reluctant to, as the American sociologist Charles Murray notes, ‘preach what they practice’ with our new elites ‘walking the Fifties and talking the Sixties’ as one writer quipped. 

Ground zero for global ‘Karendom’, California, has a prime example of this phenomenon at work. The Californian elite, on top of their gated communities and eschewing of technology, largely live lives of tradition and two-parent stability, in spite of their leftist bluster. As an Ed West article observed in 2020: we are ‘apt to assume the liberal elites are a bunch of decadent swingers, eschewing marriage, embracing free love, and getting abortions’ … ‘this is far from the truth’ … ‘when it comes to their own families’ … ‘California elites with kids overwhelmingly live right in private, giving their children the benefit of growing up in a two-parent family’.

What we need is not the current ‘Karenocracy’. Being ruled over by a virtue-signalling leftist elite is no substitute for a genuine government that is actually interested in finding practical solutions to real-life problems: like affordable energy, improvements in education, or the urgent repairs we need to our quickly fraying social fabric. Until that happens, though, it seems as if we’re stuck in our own California, where our left-liberal elites hypocritically espouse their virtue from the confines of their Mosman and Toorak enclaves.