Australia is in a very strange place, politically.

The relationship between the voting public and its political class has never been particularly enthusiastic in the American patriotic sense or vigorous like the French revolutionary vibe. Rather, Australians tolerate their politicians knowing someone has to run the country. Besides, most people would rather not endure the bureaucratic Petri dish of Canberra and are happy to outsource the day-to-day paperwork of the State to practised pencil-pushers.

Within reason.

Unwatched and unjudged, public disinterest has led to government mismanagement on a massive scale – but it is a structural civilisational failure that has two very different manifestations for the Left and Right.

The Right is unrepresented in Parliament. Let’s make that clear.

Conservatism, as presented by the Coalition between the Liberals and Nationals, is a strange cross-breed of progressive politics, green moralism, economic caution, ABC vanity, and a disintegrating fog of nostalgia.

It is a shit show that endured thanks to decades of momentum. Since the highs of Australian culture at the turn of the millennium, the Coalition has become a cart without any wheels or horse, tumbling down the mountain of idiocy towards the inevitable Big State. Some conservative politicians have mistaken this for a fun ride, shouting ‘Wheee!’ with their hands in the air, paying no mind to the crash waiting at the end.

‘Crash’ because unless the Coalition takes control of the Education system, there will be no significant population of conservative thinkers graduating from the toxic propaganda factories known as ‘universities’. This is already a statistical reality, with two or three generations of young voters having a negligible presence at the polls. In the off chance a young conservative approaches journalism or politics, they are frightened off, chastised, or shooed away by a deeply protective class of – quite frankly arrogant and elite – politicians and press. If you do not worship the Coalition with unquestioning loyalty, you are excluded from the community of conservative politics. I can attest to that personally. When I choose to write with frankness in these columns, I do so knowing that I have condemned myself to a lonely room with few peers.

‘Lonely’ is exactly how conservative voters feel.

Their political preferences are ignored and their criticisms see them labelled – by their own party – as ‘cookers’, ‘conspiracy theorists’, and ‘traitors’. I have listened to politicians who tried to out-green the Teals speak of voters with concerns about the cultish and destructive nature of renewable energy as being ‘not smart enough’ to understand Net Zero. The voters understand Net Zero. They see who’s getting rich, who wanders into cushy private sector jobs, and who is left with a rotting piece of junk in their paddock.

Conservatives were ignored during Covid, where the Coalition rejected even the vaguest notion of liberty, free speech, medical consent, and economic reason. They were shoved aside when they shouted, ‘No!’ to mass migration which has since shifted elections in favour of socialists and anti-Western religious activists. They practically had to beg Peter Dutton to oppose the Voice to Parliament after being fed to the wolves by their Liberal state governments who signed racially-based lockout laws and oversaw a disturbing expansion of Native Title handovers.

If we are to look at the Coalition in an honest light, they have been the caretakers of Woke politics and the progressive agenda – feeding the insanity either out of fear of the ABC calling them ‘racist’ or because they are genuinely in the wrong party, acting as a seat-warmer because they like the prestige.

The natural consequence of this neglect is a right-wing voting public who are either angry enough to swell the ranks of minor conservative parties, or struck dumb by complete and total apathy. The latter is on full display for this federal election, with the ‘Forgotten People’ reciprocating that sentiment by forgetting to pay attention to politicians.

Never has this been more evident than the debate held between Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton on Sky News Australia a few nights ago. Describing it as ‘two planks of wood smacking together’ is being kind to the skill level of both participants and the moderator.

My point is not that it was abysmal, it is that hardly anyone watched it.

Ordinary, middle-class and working-class voters who don’t belong to an exploitable minority category are fully aware that their role in society is to be taxed to death. They are viewed as money trees that get watered with a few promises just often enough to keep them alive.

‘What debate?’ said dozens of comments on social media. ‘I wouldn’t have watched it anyway,’ said another. ‘Going by recent comments, it was pretty dull, boring, and full of weirdo lefties.’ Another added, ‘Overall thought the whole debate was pretty lacklustre.’

Most agreed that Albanese did little but fabricate and exaggerate his cause, but those who did watch it were enormously frustrated by Dutton’s inability to land a blow. His best line of the entire evening was, ‘With respect, Anthony, that’s very dishonest.’ This is the Peter Dutton who got tough on digital free speech, but spent the night letting Albanese weave a thick nest of misinformation, disinformation, and outright delusion.

There’s a famous expression about wanting a woman to be a ‘saint in the house and a you-know-what in the bedroom’ well, voters want their politicians to be gentlemen in office and rabies-infested mongrel dogs chewing limbs off political opponents at election time.

Humans, particularly women, are conditioned to vote for the strongest, scariest bastard out there. It’s a survival technique that worked really well for the first few million years of tribal life but has a few problems translating to modern politics where the Left tend to appear as authoritarian and the Right as soft, reserved, and weak. Something goes wrong in the brain of a voter and they pick the dangerous dictator because they have a strong message and booming voice. Conservatives must mimic strength in expression, just as the enduring politicians of the movement did in the past.

This does not mean conservatives have to fight dirty, only that they have to prosecute their policies ruthlessly.

One comment on our Facebook account made an excellent point. Dutton could have won that debate, and the election, if he had simply asked the room, ‘Do you feel better off than you were three years ago?’ The personal truth of that answer, whether the crowd admit to it in public, is the sort of quiet voice that lingers in the minds of voters when they’re about to mark their ballot paper.

Our readership, while largely unimpressed with the debate, felt that Dutton ultimately won. He got marks for honesty, calm, and his genuine nature which made Albanese look twice as shifty. I’m surprised Albanese didn’t whip out his Medicare card and start brandishing it at Dutton. To be fair, Albanese is a uniquely poor public speaker – a reflection of Labor’s total disinterest when it comes to merit as a qualification in the talent pool.

At the opening I said there were two manifestations of political negligence, and while there is exhaustion on the Right, there is a pandemic of radicalisation on the Left. This includes lemming-style obedience from voters who have never questioned so much as the typos in Labor policy, let alone its inconsistencies and consequences. These are the people who cheer as Australia is deconstructed around them. Then there are the useful idiots who have grown up in an existence so sheltered from history and reality that they think communism will work if we just try again. Others, such as the old rich Teals I see on my weekly walks, exist in a dream world, untouched by the hideous consequences of the virtue which they buy with other people’s futures. They believe themselves to be at the peak of intelligence, but they are deepest in the con.

Only a public that punishes bad behaviour at the election, rewards strength, and makes a loud noise on social media about what they want out of their political class can change this trend.

If conservatives withdraw in disgust, which they are, Australia will be left to the wolves and sheep of the Left.

And to the politicians I would say, ‘Stop being so bloody useless!!!’

Flat White is written by Alexandra Marshall. If you would like to support her work, shout her a coffee over at donor-box.