Yeah even the Rudd/Gillard/Rudd Labor government was bordering on Centre-right. There is no nuance in government or politics at the moment, everything has been about what could be condensed into a seven-fifteen second sound bite and there is no time to go into complex policy decisions that are counter intuitive and only able to be rationalised with evidence. The Dunning-Kruger effect has left a lot of stupid people thinking they are experts and that everything has a simple "common sense" solution, but if you try to educate people then you are being preachy and not respecting their beliefs.
When a lot of people talk about 'the left' they're not really talking about the left at all. I've had so many of these ******* discussions with ill-informed people who have strong opinions about politics recently- I almost long for the good old days when it was just 'politics? *eyes glaze over*'. Now it's morons who are convinced they're right, but aren't self aware enough to realise that they haven't the faintest clue what they're talking about. Yeah man, you're entitled to your opinion, but when that opinion is based on extremely limited knowledge of politics, current affairs, and history you really shouldn't expect people to take you seriously. I will curb stomp the next moron who attempts to explain the real reasons behind Trump's election based on some shit they read on reddit. And no, people with socially liberal views are not automatically 'left wing' you ******* nongs. I think some people's brains would explode if they were exposed to racist communists or socially liberal libertarians (not that the latter really exist).
Can see clearly that right wing ideologies are gaining momentum in the Western world especially the past 5 years. USA is only the start and I expect some major EU countries to continue this trend and Australia to follow. Refugees, illegal immigrants, foreign 'investment', unnecessary military involvement in foreign affairs, issues with welfare and rising cost of living are some of the main issues that left wing parties throughout the Western world have not improved or fixed in the past 15 years. You can see why people are sick of seeing them in power... it doesn't help that the political leaders for these parties are pretty much useless anyway further adding fuel to the fire for a right wing uprising. I embrace the change.
You really shouldn't. Just out of interest, what do you mean by 'left wing'?
Nailed it. Regardless of your side or point of view the left have adopted a position of superiority to such a degree now they run the risk of alienating the very socialist base they exist on. The irony is they don't see it.
You can't blame the media when you exploit it. You can't blame disconnection when you create it by using endorsements of the elite.
For the sake of moderation and reasoned debate both sides need to figure out how to re- energise and include their bases.
It's almost certain on current trajectory One Nation will hold balance of power in Qld next election. That's an outcome few should find comfort in yet the fact people feel the need to vote that way says more about the current political scene than the voters themselves.
And that's the lesson the screaming left are struggling with at the moment.
The left in the US is extremely divided, and has been for quite some time. The left, especially the socialists, have been at war (figuratively speaking) with the centre/liberals since the Sanders campaign started to gain momentum, and that's still going. The Clinton campaign + hangers on devoted a substantial amount of time to attacking people to its left during/after the primaries, and it seems that they really shot themselves in the foot there.
I agree with some of what you're saying, but the whole issue is a lot more complicated given that there are a wide range of competing viewpoints on the left/between the left and the centre. Of course, a lot of these debates occurred between writers who don't really matter on twitter/other parts of the internet where no one was really watching/listening, but what's happened is still interesting. Basically, there's a lot of railing against liberals and liberalism going on from left at the moment for various reasons, some of which are similar to those criticisms coming from the right. Jon Stewart and co are part of the problem, that sorta thing. It's all been pretty vicious at times, numerous people have lost their jobs over things they've said etc.
http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberalism
This essay is pretty long, but it sums up a lot of the criticisms I'm talking about. Some of it is good, some less so. The writer is a socialist who was later fired from Vox (common subject of derision from the left/fairly mediocre site that specialises in 'explainer journalism', whatever that is) for applauding anti-trump riots in california.