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Nick Bryant is a former BBC correspondent and the author of The Rise and Fall of Australia: How a Great Nation Lost Its Way.

School drop-off parking cops, cricket fun police: It’s Australia’s punishment 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

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Let’s rethink The Lucky Country. Australia’s fortune was never dumb luck

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
Was 2024 democracy’s annus horribilis? Actually, that may be yet to come
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
When Trump says the world’s ‘a little crazy right now’, you know it’s bad

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
Trump is America’s Caligula. His mission is to destroy what made America great

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
Making the Democrats great again might require a dash of Trumpism

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
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Always divided, America is now combustible. Trump and Harris show it as never before

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
Small things like these could win it for Harris … or Trump

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

‘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
Not even Bob Hawke could escape this new incumbency trap

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
Normally, ‘veep’ debates don’t really matter. This time it does

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.watoday.com.au/by/nick-bryant-p5363d