‘Polarization’ has become the master concept for diagnosing our current democratic crisis. But this is not polarization. It is the radicalization of the political right. By misdiagnosing it, we risk becoming complicit in the crisis. 🧵 Just out in Perspectives on Politics doi.org/10.1017/S153...

An essay on what happened in Hungary:

Jan-Werner Müller · Short Cuts: Orbán’s Fall

Can there be poetic justice in politics? Perhaps once in a lifetime. In 1989, a young Viktor Orbán bravely told the...

lrb.co.uk

What are the stakes for One Nation - and perhaps more importantly, the Liberals - in the byelections over the coming weeks? Zareh Ghazerian & I on the big questions facing the parties here lens.monash.edu/pauline-hans...

One Nation’s moment of truth

Rising polls and key byelections in Farrer and Nepean could make or break Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, and its push into the lower house.

lens.monash.edu

What are the stakes for One Nation - and perhaps more importantly, the Liberals - in the byelections over the coming weeks? Zareh Ghazerian & I on the big questions facing the parties here lens.monash.edu/pauline-hans...

One Nation’s moment of truth

Rising polls and key byelections in Farrer and Nepean could make or break Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, and its push into the lower house.

lens.monash.edu

It is remarkable how reliable this is. ONP was up, and it was a question of the future of populism, now they’re down and it’s their failure, the actual government is ambiguously kind of supporting a war, there’s inflation coming, fuel prices are up, but through it all the Greens stay on 12

Liam Hogan@liamhogan.id.au · 4mo ago

TWELVE #twelve

Some of the best journalism on party finance and organisational structure I've seen in a long time. Much of it aligning with a known pattern over decades, but still interesting to see - and adds to my suspicion of PHON as a lasting force. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Pauline Hanson’s One Nation banks millions in public funding. Where does all the money go?

Exclusive: Former candidates accuse party of enriching itself at their expense, while insiders lift veil on chaos in Brisbane HQ – and staffers’ contempt for rank-and-file members

theguardian.com

If Matt Goodwin is speaking in Budapest, 5pm today, he has kept v quiet about being there. He posted extensively about Hungary's 2018, 2022 election results, but nothing at all on 2026

Sam Bright@writesbright.bsky.social · 4mo ago

In absolutely chef’s kiss timing, Matthew Goodwin is due to speak at Orbán’s in-house propaganda group MCC *today* Badloss strikes again.

What a joy it was to wake up in Australia this morning to the news out of Hungary. A wonderful day for my Hungarian friends and colleagues, and a reminder for the rest of us that politics is always open and contingent, that nothing is destiny. What a great day.

The bleak trend in new openings in politics academic jobs should be clearly explained to prospective PhD applicants. Landing an academic job is much, much harder than it was a few years ago.

Jack Bailey@jack-bailey.co.uk · 4mo ago

Rough reading, but great work by @ralphscott.bsky.social, @lawrencemckay.bsky.social, and @williamlallen.bsky.social. Things are not ok out there! www.psa.ac.uk/resources/ac...

It's always good to have a target market

If we are lucky, Victoria might actually be able to elect a properly democratic upper house this November. Time to put old mate Glenn Druery out of business

Kevin Bonham@kevinbonham.bsky.social · 4mo ago

The Victorian Electoral Commission has responded to the Electoral Matters report on the upper house electoral system. They say they can implement removing GTV if removing GTV is passed by August. #springst

🚨What you won't read in the British media: on X, journalist @twelves.bsky.social has looked at Matt Goodwin's new book, Suicide of a Nation, and found that is packed full of fake quotes and material that appears to have been made up by AI.

Following the SA election, keep seeing some version of "One Nation got 22% of the total vote, but only 0 or 1 or 2 seats haha". Sure. That's the electoral system. If we had proportional rep, people would not be laughing. They also got 24% in the Upper House, where they will win probably 3 seats.

Um, the second-biggest party in the polls right now is One Nation. Populism has arguably never been as "alive" in Australia as this very moment.

Ian Dunt@iandunt.bsky.social · 5mo ago

How Australia killed populism open.substack.com/pub/iandunt/...

Um, the second-biggest party in the polls right now is One Nation. Populism has arguably never been as "alive" in Australia as this very moment.

Ian Dunt@iandunt.bsky.social · 5mo ago

How Australia killed populism open.substack.com/pub/iandunt/...

Clive Palmer and Ralph Babet reunited at last

Kevin Bonham@kevinbonham.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Party registration news: name change applications for Trumpet of Patriots to change back to Aus Federation and SusAus to add "Affordable Housing Now" to its name were approved, and so was the re-registration of United Australia Party (Palmer version, no connection to original)

I keep looking at these projections thinking that the one big thing that could arrest ON's rise is seriously-well-funded community independents in the McGowan mode in every single Coalition seat. But there are real limits to waiting on one guy/organisation to fund those for the good of lib democracy

6 News Australia@6newsau.bsky.social · 5mo ago

🚨 NEW: One Nation would win around 52 seats in the House of Representatives while the Coalition would fall to just NINE, according to an MRP model released today by DemosAU

One Nation (Hansonist) One Nation (Ashbyist) One Nation (Joyceist) One Nation (Queensland) One Nation (City/Country) One Nation (MAGA) One Nation (Hansonist-Joyceist-Katterist) One Nation (Patriotic) One Nation (United Patriots) One Nation (Reform) One Nation (Parliamentary) One Nation (Bernardiist)

If this actually happened, within a year we would have more One Nation splinter parties than there are Nepali communist parties

Kevin Bonham@kevinbonham.bsky.social · 5mo ago

#DemosAU (MRP) ALP 29 L-NP 21 ON 27 Green 12 others 11 seat estimate ALP 83 ON 52 L-NP 9 (yep) Grn 1 others 5 - MRP method struggles with some of the IND seats, would expect a few more than that.

Anglosphere agony vs Nordic nirvana. (PS Can't believe I'd never seen this graph before, so grateful to @stephenkb.bsky.social for sharing in his fab morning newsletter (www.ft.com/inside-polit...)

Matt Canavan elected as Nationals leader and Clive Palmer announces he will run again for Parliament. What a bumper day for right-wing populism in Australia.

I know I wrote the book on populism and performance, but god, I didn't mean the performance thing literally

Brian Finucane@bcfinucane.bsky.social · 5mo ago

"I hope you are impressed," he said to me. "How do you like the performance? I mean, Venezuela is obvious. This might be even better. How do you like the performance?" "How do you like the performance?" An illegal war for the sake of spectacle and the amusement of POTUS.

🎉 New publication 😍 The 4th wave of the #farright is marked by #mainstreaming & #normalisation - but how can we distinguish between them? In our new article, @gefjonoff.bsky.social and I map the existing literature, introduce a conceptual framework & outline research avenues. doi.org/10.1017/S147...

Well done to Nigel Farage for convincing Matt Goodwin to run for an urban seat with a large ethnic minority population. I think we now can be sure who did the numbers for Revolt on the Right.

*deep breath* a hahah ahHahahahahHAhahahhahhhaaaaaaaaaheeheeeeee heehehe

CALL FOR CHAPTERS! Me and @grahammacklin.bsky.social are putting together an edited collection looking at the use of pseudoscientific ideas by extremist movements. If you are interested, please send us your abstracts at this link: forms.gle/mAUtpDGNEj9i...