Conservatives once railed against the permissive society. As defenders of faith, family and flag, they lamented falling social standards and feared the loss of Judeo-Christian values. Now, their vulgar champions lead the descent
Mark Kenny
@markgkenny.bsky.social
Broadcast commentator. Democracy Sausage podcast. Director, Australian Studies Institute, ANU. Ex-Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, ABC RN. Columnist, The Canberra Times. 2025-26 FASIC Australia-in-China Fellow. Multiculturalist. Schnauzer-aligned.
#ICYMI, Karen Barlow from @thesaturdaypaper.com.au joined @markgkenny.bsky.social & @marijataflaga.bsky.social on last week's #DemocracySausage 🌭🎙️ to make sense of Labor's conference of conformity, the Pyongyang PMO, and the rise of One Nation. #auspol 🎧👉 ausi.anu.edu.au/news/democra...
Labor’s moral turpitude on gambling advertising is depressing. Australia just smashed much larger countries in the Commonwealth Games precisely because we are a sports-mad culture. Our athletes grew up loving & valuing sport for its own brilliance, not crass probabilities and windfalls.
Labor converted to economic rationalism in the 1980s and 90s but there ain’t many worshippers left in that church. The new religion abhors hands-off incrementalism or what Wayne Swan has called “antiseptic centrism”. And what about the conservatives now being consumed on both flanks…
So we live in a world where this is headline news instead of, you know, normal.
Why has social cohesion — a concept researchers still can't agree how to measure — become one of the most contested ideas in Australian politics? Dr Michael Zekulin chats w/ @markgkenny.bsky.social & @marijataflaga.bsky.social on the latest #DemocracySausage 🌭🎙️. 🎧👉 ausi.anu.edu.au/news/democra...
Taylor muscles up to Hanson’s racist populism (finally). Peter Magyar rescues Hungarian honour (and democracy). Pope Leo directly takes on the Musk-Trump squid. US Democrats and UK Labour switching to actual progressives. Glimpses perhaps of a less awful future?
Had a great chat about Angertainment with @markgkenny.bsky.social and @marijataflaga.bsky.social on Australia's best #auspol podcast, tune in wherever you usually do that for podcasts
ANU Australian Studies Institute@anuausi.bsky.social · 4w agoIs social media now a more powerful force reshaping Australian democracy than any politician, party, or policy? Hear from author of 'Angertainment' @edcoper.bsky.social on the latest ep of #DemocracySausage w/ @markgkenny.bsky.social & @marijataflaga.bsky.social. 🎧👉 ausi.anu.edu.au/news/democra...
Is social media now a more powerful force reshaping Australian democracy than any politician, party, or policy? Hear from author of 'Angertainment' @edcoper.bsky.social on the latest ep of #DemocracySausage w/ @markgkenny.bsky.social & @marijataflaga.bsky.social. 🎧👉 ausi.anu.edu.au/news/democra...
And now, a state byelection in Hastie’s federal electorate?
"Under Peter Dutton, surrendering the cities was always a high-risk strategy. Under Taylor it is several orders of magnitude crazier because the rural-regional base has already slipped from the Coalition." #AUViews 📰 ausi.anu.edu.au/news/opinion... @markgkenny.bsky.social @canberratimes.bsky.social
Fresh #DemocracySausage is out! 🌭🎙️ @zalisteggall.bsky.social & @allegraspender.bsky.social join @markgkenny.bsky.social & @marijataflaga.bsky.social to unpack the launch of Community Strong Australia — its logic, its irony, & whether teal voters will get on board. 🎧 ausi.anu.edu.au/news/democra...
Democracy Sausage Episode: Two Teals, One Ticket | Australian Studies Institute
ausi.anu.edu.au
It seems likely that this will be looked back on as the last chance the once dominant Liberal Party had to defend its liberalism. Yet it refused, appeased, surrendered
Flattening out modern, diverse Australia. What a dismal, unpatriotic mission.
The Coalition continues to bowl Nerf balls at One Nation and call it body line. Not hard to see where its real sympathies are
Presumably, Barnaby Joyce is referring to "gotcha questions" to Pauline Hanson such as: 'What is your policy on [insert almost anything here]?' #auspol
ABC News Bot (unofficial)@abcnewsbot.bsky.social · 2mo agoBarnaby Joyce has cautioned his leader Pauline Hanson against falling for "gotcha questions" during her address to the National Press Club today. Follow live.
Thank you for writing this, and thanks for posting, it’s great. I hope many read it and prepare. Once upon a time this kind of discontent would take five years to get here, now it takes five minutes. I hope we’re ready.
"If Hanson rates governmental accountability so lowly that even when she could use it to her advantage, she goes missing, imagine her contempt for being answerable herself were she PM." #AUViews #auspol 📰👉 ausi.anu.edu.au/news/opinion... by @markgkenny.bsky.social via @canberratimes.bsky.social
Fresh #DemocracySausage 🌭🎙️ episode just dropped! Rüçhan Kaya, A/Prof of Political Science @austincollege.bsky.social, joins @markgkenny.bsky.social & @marijataflaga.bsky.social to discuss the drift towards popularism & nationalism in liberal democratic countries. 🎧👉 ausi.anu.edu.au/news/democra...
A federal election is two years away but the portents suggest something wild.
An absolute must read from Mark Kenny in which he draws several key dire strands of the dilemmas facing us as a species. The Wake-up calls are starting to come thick and fast now …
Mark Kenny@markgkenny.bsky.social · 2mo agoRescuing American leadership as technology replaces that which is uniquely human & authentic.
Rescuing American leadership as technology replaces that which is uniquely human & authentic.
‘Widely repeated claims…consumers don’t want to buy EVs will one day be studied by social historians as a form of collective false consciousness, a distortion created by the culture war fed by large doses of black propaganda by Russian bots & vested interests.’ www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/1a99a89...
The electric car takeover is now unstoppable
While the US applies the brakes, emerging markets race to electrification
telegraph.co.uk