Joe Hildebrand: WorldPride haters prove left is drowning in ignorance

Marching for Sydney WorldPride on the weekend, on a day marked overwhelmingly by love, it was clear to me that some on the left were still devotedly committed to hate, writes Joe Hildebrand.

On Sunday, I was proud to walk across the Harbour Bridge in the Sydney World Pride March.

Not proud for myself but proud for my city and the people who live in it — and the many many visitors who discovered that Australia is not the hate-filled cesspool of intolerance that many like to paint it as.

In fact the best part wasn’t even the march itself but the fact that as we rounded off the Cahill Expressway towards the Domain every other motorist was honking their horn furiously.

Not for the reason that Sydneysiders usually do but because they wanted to join in the fun and literally blast their support.

But that warm glow was skewered later in the day when a young person of indeterminate Extinction Rebellion-esque characteristics randomly started chanting mean things about me.

Pride marchers (including Joe Hildebrand) cross the Harbour Bridge on March 5 for the Pride March at the end of Sydney WorldPride. Picture: Jenny Evans

Not at the march of course — that was an entirely positive affair — but while I was doing my weekly supermarket shop with the kids.

It was all quite surreal. The person was too gutless to speak to me directly or even raise their voice too much — seemingly determined that only myself and the kids could hear it.

I asked them what on earth they were going on about but the person just kept reciting to a non-existent audience — through a face mask of course — that I was a “right-wing loser”.

This was naturally deeply disturbing. Firstly, if I was right-wing I would be a right-wing winner.

Secondly, I am not right-wing, as all right-wingers are smart enough to know.

Indeed, given my long and publicly-professed support of Anthony Albanese I am if anything a left-wing winner.

Joe Hildebrand is a self-confessed fan of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese/. Picture: Monique Harmer

But on a day marked overwhelmingly by love, it was clear to me that some on the left were still devotedly committed to hate.

And on a day marked overwhelmingly by understanding, some on the left were still hopelessly drowning in ignorance.

It was confusing at first but soon became clear when I heard the person later explain to his puzzled companion that part of the reason for his conclusion was that I was critical of Lidia Thorpe.

And so now we know: In the minds of the lunar left anyone who disagrees with someone who has literally united with the right to kill off the Indigenous Voice must be a right-winger. By this definition even the Greens themselves are right wing.

That’s how crazy these numpties are.

Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe. Picture: Gary Ramage

They’re the same people who constantly attack the ABC for being too right-wing — yes, that is not a typo — and think that everything wrong with their sad and self-obsessed lives is the result of some nebulous Murdoch press conspiracy that they would be able to expose were it not for the Murdoch press.

But maybe there is another explanation. Maybe the reason for these people’s unhappiness is simply that they are not very nice.

That is clearly a recurring theme in the unedifying dispute between Teal uberkind Monique Ryan and her (former? current? time-travelling?) chief-of-staff Sally Rugg.

You would be hard-pressed to find two people in the country more dedicated to shaming others for not adhering to their impeccable moral and ideological standards — from mask-wearing to marriage equality — and yet after just six months they are at each other’s throats.

The good news for all of us here in the sensible centre is that they are currently on track to destroy each other’s reputations and the good news for journalists everywhere is that they are doing it in the most hilarious and hysterical way possible.

Monique Ryan and Sally Rugg in happier times.

The hypocrisy alone is popcorn-worthy. Rugg delighted in attacking people on social media who dared question covid restrictions. Yet court documents reveal she boarded a plane while Covid positive because she didn’t want to drive home from Canberra.

Meanwhile Ryan’s Covid hysteria is at least consistent but she is also accused of doing a dodgy “off-book” deal to get rid of Rugg, despite preaching ad nauseum about openness and integrity in politics.

And she said she wanted to be Prime Minister, despite claiming the Teals are not even a political party. But she now says this was a joke — apparently there’s no better time than a bitter HR dispute to roll out the lolz!

All my life I have tried to do what little I can to help the poor and less fortunate but even I feel unworthy of the glorious public immolation of these nauseatingly sanctimonious self-promoters. The Kingdom of Heaven has come too soon.

There are three important factors here: The first is that Ryan has now clearly set up herself and the Teals as a direct threat to Labor. There is only room for one Prime Minister in this town.

This means they are no longer what the Bolsheviks called “useful idiots”.

Like the Greens, they are simply softening the ALP up for an upper-middle class takeover of the left.

And that means the sophisticated Labor-linked campaign strategy that was so successful last time will likely start to shy away.

The second is that the Teals will now suffer from a split between the Ryan and Rugg factions, which means the Rugg-aligned troll army known as GetUp! is unlikely to throw its weight behind Teal campaigns with the same evangelical fervour of 2022.

But the third and most important factor is they no longer have a bogeyman like Scott Morrison to campaign against.

This is the critical problem for movements united by negativity: They fall apart when there is no one left to hate.

And now we know how well they do at love.