Originally published on The Interpreter. Two federal elections ago, in 2016, the primary vote for the Labor Party and the Liberal-Nationals coalition reached record lows, while the number of voters who put an independent or minor party first on their … Continue reading
Democracy
I really enjoyed this conversation with my friend Peyton Bowman which celebrates the possibility that Australia might be able to show the world how to push back against the Trumpian madness. We tried to turn Peyton’s lack of inside knowledge … Continue reading
In this discussion, Peyton Bowman and I discuss my term ‘fast-foodification’. I coined the word trying to describe modern politics. The techniques used by politicians and their professional enablers are optimised to attract votes in the same way that McDonalds and … Continue reading
This is a piece I did for Crikey I’d forgotten I’d written and hadn’t put it up here. So now I have. The article was spotted by someone who has been exposing just how much damage opening up Congressional committee … Continue reading
If we want politicians to actually represent their constituents, we need to free them from the pressure of toeing the party line. A week or so ago someone tweeted this to me. It was a response to my Crikey! article … Continue reading
I use Troppo to make various notes for file as it were for reference in future. And on wanting to record something I found that I hadn’t reproduced this post — which was originally at The Mandarin — here. So … Continue reading
Michael Haines, who has previously posted on Troppo, is campaigning for universal income funded from the adoption of sovereign money — which would yield a large amount of seigniorage like revenue to government. Geoff Croker is campaigning for something similar … Continue reading
I What is it with James Burnham? I associate him — via Curtis Yarvin — with the alt-right. And Burnham is the founding text of what I call the Alt-centre (of which I am the founder and which I’m hoping … Continue reading
As part of my recent fascination with competitive and ‘de-competitive’ merit selection, I’ve been looking at the origins of both parliamentary and presidential elections. Intriguingly though we now associate elections with competition between candidates, in both the British parliamentary system … Continue reading
Like me, Leslie Cannold is deeply grateful for Liz Chaney right now — you know, the way she’s speaking truth to fruitcakery. Liz Cheney is my hero. On positions of policy, I disagree with her almost 100% of the time, … Continue reading