The outcome of the Victorian election can perhaps be explained in one sentence: it’s better to believe the fairy tale that the government can keep you safe, than accept the truth that it cannot. 

People don’t want to face the fear of thinking there’s actually not much we can do to stop the spread of a virus, or prevent changes in the climate. A happy lie beats a frightening truth, hands down. 

Certainly, vaccines provide some protection against severity of illness for many people. Lockdowns provide some reduction in the circulation of any virus. And when the redback spider is on the bedroom wall, nobody cares about the mess you make trying to kill it … even if the mess poses a greater, but less imminent, threat.

Most are simply not willing to give up the idea that the government can protect them with lockdowns, vaccines, and Net Zero programs. To do so requires our modern safe-space-loving society to face vulnerability, the truth of the human condition, and mortality – a terrifying prospect, especially for those without some faith tradition to hold onto. 

And so, the politics of fear is at play. Fear is a powerful weapon. 

In 2006, the Republicans in America introduced a law that allowed the President to designate any foreign national an ‘enemy combatant’, detain them indefinitely without judicial review, and submit them to whatever coercion he deemed fit. 

The President wasn’t given the power to torture them, but he could define ‘coercion’ however he liked, including what a reasonable person might call torture. Coerced evidence could then be used against in secret courts to achieve a conviction. 

With Democrats, and even some notable Republicans, publicly reacting very negatively to the laws initially, it looked like they were doomed to failure. In reality, all the Republicans had to do was threaten Democrats that opposed the laws by publicly branding them as ‘soft on terrorism’ at the next election. The law was passed. (It was later ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and replaced in 2010.)

In the Australian context, it’s the Labor Party and Greens who currently use the politics of fear most effectively. Dare question severe lockdowns and you’re ‘soft on Covid!’ Dare question the claimed efficacy of the vaccine and you’re a ‘dangerous anti-vaxxer who kills grandmas!’ And as for climate change – the science is settled! 

The boomers and the elderly are terrified, and so are the youngsters. Job done. 

Paralysed by fear, the Liberal Party has lost six elections in a row since 2020: ACT, Qld, WA, SA, Federal, and now Victoria. The dominant strategy? Don’t criticise the government’s Covid response or its race to Net Zero. ‘We must not come out strongly against state border closures, the denial of Australian citizens’ right of abode, or a damaging rush toward a fictional Net Zero, because the research shows the public won’t accept it.’

It’s true. You may lose an election or two sticking to conviction politics. The alternative is that you’ll lose an election or two anyway…

Actually, the alternative is much worse. You’ll lose an election or two, your soul, your supporters, your membership base, your core values, your brand positioning, your value proposition to the voters and perhaps your entire party. At least, that’s what Labor and the Greens dream for the Liberals and Nationals. And their dream is slowly coming true. 

ABC chief number cruncher Anthony Green suggested on election night that a swing of 7 per cent in the primary vote – if distributed in the right manner across the right seats – could have seen a win for the Liberals. The ALP had a swing against it of around 5.8 per cent, but this seemed to flow mostly to minor conservative-liberal parties who were up around 6 per cent. 

As it turned out, Matthew Guy and his friends, scored a swing against them of -0.7 per cent, suggesting that their ‘Labor-lite’ strategy was a failure. 

Perhaps the Australian populace has – as the Liberal Party’s market research undoubtedly shows – swung toward more extreme ideological thinking. 

Perhaps five decades of identity-politics-laced neo-Marxist ideology oozing its way through our schools, universities, and media is finally having its desired effect. 

But the antidote to this is not to lie down and give up. And you don’t need to bank ‘hard right’ to do this. 

If relatively unknown minor conservative parties can pick up a 6 per cent swing, what could a well-coordinated traditional, classical liberal, centre-right vision for the country bring to a mature, well-established party like the Liberals? 

And given those same minor conservative parties are (mostly) falsely derided by many in the mainstream as ‘RWNJ deplorable cookers’, what could a narrative that is very in-tune with the sensible centre-right’s real concerns achieve?

I’d suggest more percentage points than a shift to the right would lose them off their current 29.7 per cent primary vote. And it’d certainly protect the party’s soul, its brand, and their raison d’etre. 

This is something that the Canadian Conservative Party’s new leader Pierre Poilievre, US state Governors Ron DeSantis (Florida), Greg Abbott (Texas), Kristi Noem (South Dakota), and the new Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, have woken up to and have used to their significant advantage. 

In any case, the current strategy is clearly not working, and the notion of doubling-down on it for a seventh time should be regarded as pure insanity. 

But that’s exactly what they’re talking about doing. The same party ‘strategists’ that lost the previous six elections, mused on election night that the party needed identity-politics-based ‘quotas’ for women and other minorities. More neo-Marxist ‘diversity’ will fix everything! 

The definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. 

But then, as Albert Einstein once said, ‘Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity – and I’m not sure about the former.’