Tory Shepherd: As with the Hulk, making Hanson and her supporters angry only makes them stronger
THE immediate – and natural – reaction to Pauline Hanson’s re-emergence is a combination of dismay and contempt. But some wise people have suggested we’d be best to bottle that reaction.
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THE immediate – and natural – reaction to Pauline Hanson’s re-emergence is a combination of dismay and contempt. But some wise people have suggested we’d be best to bottle that reaction. The theory goes that set-to-be-Senator Hanson is really pretty much the Hulk.
According to Marvel, the creators of the big green lug, the Hulk’s strength “increases proportionally with his level of great emotional stress, anger in particular”.
“The angrier the Hulk gets, the stronger the Hulk gets,” according to the story.
Anger has driven Ms Hanson’s success. She’s angry. Her followers are angry. And preaching at them from on high about why the policies they’re putting up are wrong and insulting is only going to make them puff up more.
The Economist calls it the “politics of anger”. It has blossomed and borne fruit through the Brexit – the UK’s popular vote to leave the European Union – and the embracing of US Presidential hopeful Donald Trump.
And through Ms Hanson.
The angry people are those who feel they’ve been left behind or left out by a world that is moving on without them. It translates into protectionism: stop immigration, screw globalisation, put us first.
That’s what Ms Hanson is talking to when she talks about banning the burqa, stopping mosques, being swamped by Asians. She’s talking about hunkering down to stew in insularity. People then mistake that protectionism as her promising somehow to protect them.
She’s peddling false hope. It’s the same conspiracy thinking that drives homoeopathy.
People who make the useless pills and potions harness and amplify fear and loathing towards conventional medicine. They sell their products as a genuine alternative. And time and time again, people seeking a cure for their ills fall for those promises.
Pauline Hanson’s One Nation is our bottle of water that may or may not contain a tiny trace of Bach flower. The label promises a cure-all but the ingredients are all but worthless.
Here’s the kicker: anyone who tells Joe Bloggs his homoeopathic treatment is probably just overpriced water runs the risk of driving Mr Bloggs further from the realm of the rational. The homeo mob have been telling him medicine is a conspiracy by big, evil, faceless corporations, so he is going to see people from those corporations as the enemy and it will drive him further into the bosom of the “alternative”.
That’s not to say all of One Nation’s policies are total rubbish, but their main ones are.
If you look at interviews with candidates, press releases, Twitter feeds and so on, they’re not talking about the “medicine” that people need – health, education and jobs.
They have some thin policies in those areas, and it may be if they share the balance of power in the Senate, once we’ve worked out what the hell is going on, they start to flesh those out. They’re not talking about the things that will help close the divide between those on the ‘‘inside’’ and those who feel they are on the outer.
They’re talking about Islam. About refugees and halal certification. As though stopping mosques being built and banning the burqa are the things that will make everyone feel included.
Commentators calling for us to listen to those who feel excluded are correct; Australia should always listen to those who feel bewildered and alone.
That doesn’t mean we have to lend a sympathetic ear to xenophobic rantings, but it means we have to work out who is feeling insecure and angry, and why.
Then we have to come up with a more effective solution than a bit of snake oil and a raft of bogus promises.
Originally published as Tory Shepherd: As with the Hulk, making Hanson and her supporters angry only makes them stronger
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