Nick Bryant
Nick Bryant is a former BBC correspondent and the author of The Rise and Fall of Australia: How a Great Nation Lost Its Way.
Opinion
Australian culture
School drop-off parking cops, cricket fun police: It’s Australia’s punishment culture
Australians like to think they have a larrikin, rebellious spirit, but they are remarkably tolerant of official intervention and petty-minded bureaucracy.
- by Nick Bryant
Latest
Opinion
Australian culture
Let’s rethink The Lucky Country. Australia’s fortune was never dumb luck
Donald Horne’s seminal book cast Australia as a mediocre country run by second-rate people. The truth is its brand of democracy has often led the world.
- by Nick Bryant
Opinion
Democracy
Was 2024 democracy’s annus horribilis? Actually, that may be yet to come
More than half the world’s population had the opportunity to vote this year. That’s good news. But disaffection with democracy itself is growing. That’s not so good.
- by Nick Bryant
Opinion
Globalisation
When Trump says the world’s ‘a little crazy right now’, you know it’s bad
We should rethink the designation of 2024 as the year of democracy and think of it as the year when everything, everywhere, all at once seemed to go off the rails.
- by Nick Bryant
Opinion
Trump's White House
Trump is America’s Caligula. His mission is to destroy what made America great
Donald Trump’s bizarre appointments are alarming, but perhaps more worrying is who he wants to fire. Trump’s war on the so-called “deep state” is an assault on the apparatus that built America to greatness.
- by Nick Bryant
Opinion
US Votes 2024
Making the Democrats great again might require a dash of Trumpism
How to respond to Trump’s triumph recalls how the Democrats answered Reagan. Bill Clinton’s election-winning shift had Reaganite notes, but what made for good politics often made for terrible policy.
- by Nick Bryant
Opinion
US Votes 2024
Always divided, America is now combustible. Trump and Harris show it as never before
One of the most climactic elections in US history is also one of the closest.
- by Nick Bryant
Opinion
US Votes 2024
Small things like these could win it for Harris … or Trump
Everything matters in this squeaker of a US election, but when the result is known, these tiny factors may have ended up making the difference between defeat and victory.
- by Nick Bryant
‘An overnight success 20 years in the making’: The rise of Kamala Harris
The transformation of attitudes towards the presidential hopeful has been rapid and profound. Was she underestimated – or has she changed?
- by Nick Bryant
Opinion
Political leadership
Not even Bob Hawke could escape this new incumbency trap
Era-defining political leaders are no more. We’ve ended up with a pernicious paradox: populism is killing off the popular politician.
- by Nick Bryant
Opinion
US Votes 2024
Normally, ‘veep’ debates don’t really matter. This time it does
American politics will have another split-screen moment this week as Tim Walz debates J.D. Vance in the vice-presidential debate.
- by Nick Bryant
Original URL: https://www.smh.com.au/by/nick-bryant-p5363d