PM Scott Morrison could start Trump-style lashings of our PC betters

Scott Morrison next year faces the challenge of winning an election that is quickly becoming unwinnable, writes Tim Blair.

• Tim Blair: Australia’s best frightbats were quiet in 2018

Scott Morrison next year faces the challenge of winning an election that is quickly becoming unwinnable.

Not that this hasn’t been accomplished before. “Unwinnable” isn’t an absolute, given democracy’s entertaining variables.

Labor’s Paul Keating was an unwinnable winner in 1993, when he had the distinct advantage of running against unelectable Liberal candidate John Hewson.

Hewson’s ingenious tactic of running for Prime Minister on the back of a tax so confusing even he couldn’t explain it proved decisive in that election. Unless Bill Shorten starts talking about how certain imposts may apply to birthday cake ingredients, however, Morrison doesn’t have much hope for an opposition meltdown.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s Coalition continues to trail Labor. Picture: AAP

And Keating is unlikely to offer his advice on winning the unwinnable.

Perhaps a more recent unwinnable election could offer Morrison some guidelines. We are currently anywhere between three to five months away from election day. Let’s see where the polls were at those stages during the 2016 US presidential election.

According to one poll in August, Hillary Clinton led Donald Trump by 15 points, 48 per cent to 33 per cent. Around five other polls throughout that month also gave Clinton a double-digit advantage.

Two months earlier, and five months before election day, things weren’t much better for Trump. Clinton again scored multiple double-digit leads. Throughout that entire month, not even a single poll put Trump ahead.

It might be worth trying some Trump tactics. Picture: AP

Similarly, Morrison’s Coalition continues to trail Labor. At this point, it might be worth trying some Trump tactics.

Trump may be the first successful politician in the media era to actively scorn the media, or at least that branch of it that presumes to know what is best.

Prime Minister Morrison could start with a few Trump-style lashings of our politically-correct betters. Stop accommodating them. Instead, oppose them.

It’s worth a shot. Morrison has nothing to lose.