It is no longer unusual in English-speaking countries to come across politicians infected with ideologies that seem designed to lead to the downfall of their countries and the West.

This has been associated with a related phenomenon, that of politicians who spend by far the greater part of their career in politics alone.

As Ray Manning observes in his booklet on career politicians, spending so much of their time in politics leads to a ‘detachment’ from the ‘everyday challenges faced by ordinary citizens’.

Being so out of touch, becomes, Manning says, ‘a type of psychosis’ under which they begin to believe they know what is best as they meddle with the daily lives of citizens.

It also results, he says, in their listening to more vocal special interest groups.

These refuse to let the career politician forget ‘who they are and what they want’.

The result, he says, is that politicians speak the loudest for special interest groups.

This explains the obsession some politicians have with climate catastrophism and critical race and gender theories, the dogmas that the successors to the old Communist party, the NewComs, promote in their long march through our institutions.

Politicians seem to have an irresistible urge for division. Today, they divide the nation into races, ‘genders’ and ‘communities’. Nevertheless, the very existence of some communities, especially those with self-selected leaders and spokesmen, is questionable.

Equally questionable is attributing a single opinion to a profession, such as the false claim of a ‘consensus’ among scientists on man-made CO2 being the driver of climate change.

It is relevant then that in the coming elections in both the United States and Australia, the people are being offered a choice between a candidate with a successful working experience outside of politics and a career politician.

This, of course, was once assured by not paying politicians, a practice which prevailed in local government within living memory.

Not paying or not over-paying politicians is now apparently heretical.

A few years ago, when I was speaking to a parliamentary committee about a proposal for a constitutional convention, the only objection came from a Labor member who strongly opposed the suggestion that delegates not be paid.

It is worth stressing that, in the US, the choice in the coming presidential election is between a career politician and a successful businessman, disinterested in any personal advancement from attaining the presidency. Indeed, in his last term, Donald Trump gave his salary away.

Most importantly, he certainly fulfilled his agenda, MAGA, Making America Great Again.

His career politician opponent, Kamala Harris, is the second case study in  Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer’s 2020 ‘Profiles in Corruption’.

Her entry into political life began with a romantic attachment with Californian Speaker Willie Brown, who ensured her election as district attorney then attorney general.

Schweizer says she used her powers as a prosecutor to ‘protect corrupt allies and friends’.

As Texan Senator Cruz says, and her voting record indicates, she is further to the left than even Bernie Sanders.

Her conversion to Trumpian policies has recently been shown clearly not to extend to fulfilling her presidentially delegated role of ‘border czar’.

Trump claims her policy is to continue flooding the US with millions of illegal immigrants with the purpose of ensuring that they vote Democrat.

That this is to continue was confirmed by the recent expansion to the southern part of Mexico of a government app whereby potential immigrants can apply online for appointments to enter the United States, with the Mexican government bussing applicants to the border.

There can be no doubt that under a Trump administration, the Beijing-Moscow-Tehran axis would be wary again of crossing the line in challenging the fundamental interests of the US and the West.

But under a Harris administration, there will be a continuation of the policy of managing US decline by appeasing the Beijing-Moscow-Tehran axis.

Meanwhile in Australia, the choice in the next election will be between Anthony Albanese, whose life has been spent mainly in politics, and Peter Dutton, who worked in a butcher’s shop then served in the Queensland police force for nearly a decade, followed by a successful career in the building industry.

Elected to parliament, he has held several portfolios, including successfully overseeing the difficult immigration portfolio.

As leader of the opposition from 2022, his opposition to the Voice referendum resulted in a landslide No vote. His support for nuclear energy offers an internationally proven solution providing reliable, competitively priced, safe electricity which produces no CO2 emissions.

The present government is very much a government of career politicians.

That there is a widespread view emerging that they are out-of-touch was confirmed in an August Redbridge poll, where only 24 per cent of Australians could name a single thing that had made their lives better since the Albanese government was elected.

The folly of a government of career politicians was demonstrated recently when Minister for the Environment, Tanya Plibersek, banned a one-billion-dollar NSW gold mine creating 800 jobs because a dissident Aboriginal group objected due to ‘secret business’.

That great Australian, Gina Rinehart, who played such a significant role in the performance of our athletes at the recent Paris Olympics, as well as the nation’s leading and best-known geologist Professor Ian Plimer, both confirmed the need for almost 5,000 licences and approvals from all levels of government just to get to the construction stage in the giant Roy Hill iron ore mine in Western Australia.

Why doesn’t Canberra fix up the mess that our defence is instead of this ridiculously  wasteful  and costly duplication of what the states are quite capable of doing?

When this power is exercised by a career politician, the problem is, as Manning says, they think they know best.There is no guarantee that this or any country will retain its wealth. As this column has long warned, if our career politicians persist in their arrogance, the consequence will be that Australia could become, if not the Venezuela, the Argentina  of the South Seas.