In a recent piece on another site, I suggested that conservatism would have wide appeal among regular folk in Western countries if only it had a centre-right parties to carry the torch. My list of conservative positions went like this:
- Promoting unashamed patriotism
- Rejecting lies about the nation’s history (like the non-existent Stolen Generations in Australia)
- Putting the traditional family at the centre of national life
- Controlling borders
- Fighting crime
- Encouraging enterprise by lowering taxes and burdensome regulations
- Making energy reliable and affordable
- Providing quality public education untainted by politics and sleaze
- Opposing the sexualisation of children
- Sensibly limiting abortion
- Outlawing the chemical and physical maiming of children’s bodies
- Guarding free speech and religious liberty, and
- Not leaving fringe groups to monopolise public discourse and control the agenda
I didn’t get much feedback on my list. But a list of this kind is useful to measure politicians against. Trump comes up well for example. Probably Dutton’s instincts are sound. However, when you’re surrounded by assorted wets, greenies and effete pantywaists perhaps there is little a leader can do. It’s different of course in the U.S. where the president can bring in his own people. Here Dutton (and Perrottet maybe) lead parties which, to a large extent, have been infiltrated by university-educated lefties; liberals in U.S. parlance.
I think we can afford to be pessimistic. The prognosis is unpromising. As new graduates pour from university campuses, the disease will only metastasise throughout the body politic. Is there hope? If there is, it’s in the U.S. Nowhere else in the West. Think Ron DeSantis among other prominent Republicans. Though, perhaps, Viktor Orban and (not far right) Giorgia Meloni are worth mentioning in despatches.
