American lesson in the dangers of political tribalism
Australians voted the way they did because they don’t want this country divided and they expect whichever government is in power to run the country for the good of all.
This is one way of looking at the situation, but here is another. Most people are not committed ideologues. When the electorate rejected the Coalition at the election, they rejected more than a prime minister and his government; they rejected the direction our politics had been heading in.
Australians rejected divisive, hyper-partisan dialogue, toxic and inflammatory rhetoric and activism disguised as reporting and analysis. I believe Australians voted the way they did because they don’t want this country divided, across the geographical and political spectrum, and they expect whichever government is in power to run the country for the good of all, regardless of where they live and how they voted.
This week, when opening the 47th parliament, Governor-General David Hurley echoed the sentiment. “A change of government represents a chance to bring the nation together,” he said. He urged all present to “advocate … and debate respectfully”.
Of course, this determination to have a spirit of unity may or may not be real and, if it is, it may or may not hold. This government may fail spectacularly and the electorate may toss it out at the first opportunity.
One thing, though, is for sure. As this new parliament begins, now more than ever Australians need a well-functioning parliament. For an example to avoid, we can look to the US.
In The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future by Stephen Marche, politics is examined in a nonpartisan way by a Canadian journalist who lives in, and says he loves, the US. In his book, Marche claims: “There is very much a red America and a blue America. The differences are geographic. Blue and red people occupy different societies with different values, and their political parties are emissaries of that difference.” He argues that being Democrat or Republican is a “tribal identification” and that each side promises a different utopia.
Red America promises a country “where government defers to individual rights, where the traditional family is the bedrock of society, where ordinary people live by the power of faith”.
Blue America promises a country of “open ideas in which people can live by whatever values they choose and where distinct communities work together toward a more rational future”.
In reality, Marche says, each tribe enjoys the “pleasure of contempt” for the other. Media is openly aligned; they speak for and to the team they promote. Turn on the television and see it for yourself; the blue team is smug and supercilious, casting the reds as ignorant, macho rednecks; the red team is angry and acidic, pouring scorn on the woke, latte-sipping wimps.
Just after Donald Trump was elected, I happened to be in New York. Raging hordes marched 24 hours a day around the streets screaming “not my president”. Witness since Joe Biden’s win the “stolen election” accusations and the violence at the Capitol.
Marche doesn’t take sides; he argues that on both teams, for the ones not in power, the “sense of being under occupation dominates”. At each election, whoever loses responds the same way: adopting a grievance mindset, as if they have been dominated by a foreign power; refusing to accept the result, delegitimising the new president; and arguing for a shift in power away from the federal government in favour of state secession.
In the only country where there are more guns than people, Marche points out the danger of a political system “overwhelmed by anger”, where trust in government is in “free fall” – approval ratings for congress hover at around 10 per cent.
The book argues that political violence is on the rise but, despite the focus on violent protests, the prevailing form of violence is presidential assassination.
Being president, Marche says, is the most dangerous job in the US and the Secret Service spends around $1m a day just to keep the president alive. Marche argues that the high murder rate of presidents reflects the fact they are “living symbols of national unity that no other country possesses – icons as executives”. Americans buy guns to “tell themselves the story of the failure of government” and gun ownership is “inherently in resistance to federal authority”. You kill the president, he says, and you break and remake the country.
Reading this book, which is the best I have read in a long time, there is much to be grateful for in Australia. In particular, we have thanks to give to former prime minister John Howard for his gun reforms. We are a long way away from the intractable political situation in the US, but we must never stop working to avoid it.
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