One wonders if, at any point during the writing of his piece, titled “Hungary, and Florida, offer tips for conservative revival”, The Australian‘s Greg Sheridan was given pause by a caveat he kept adding into his rundown of parties across Europe that he argued showed the way forward for conservative values. See if you can spot the pattern:
Traditional European conservative parties, having lost all sense of purpose and fight, have been substantially replaced by parties that were once labelled far right. Thus Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, leads the Brothers of Italy. It had its origins decades ago in fascism but is not remotely fascist today. The Sweden Democrats, now the biggest party in Sweden’s ruling coalition, had more recent roots in extremism but are nothing remotely like that today. France’s National Rally, led by Marine Le Pen, has completely repudiated its anti-Semitic past and now routinely comes second in national elections with an ever-increasing vote.
The piece is glowing in its view of Meloni and Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán among others. Orbán openly believes in “ethnic homogeneity” on the basis that “life has proven that too much mixing causes trouble” — repeating in 2022 that “[Hungarians] do not want to become a mixed race” — and has peddled anti-Semitic tropes. Meloni (and her party) believe in the “great replacement” theory of immigration as an active attempt at “ethnic substitution” of white Europeans “desired by big capital”. These facts don’t appear to have affected Sheridan’s notions of these leaders as conservative exemplars.
Compare this, as University of Sydney researcher Dr Kurt Sengul did, with Sheridan’s horror at the electoral success of One Nation in 1998. He described it as “the first time since the end of the White Australia policy that a party basing its appeal on racial hostility won significant parliamentary representation”, a development that made Australia “a poorer nation, an uglier nation, and certainly a much more divided nation”. Today, Sheridan regards Hungary’s strict immigration control in far more laid-back mode: “I am personally strongly in favour of a very big and racially non-discriminatory immigration program for Australia. But it’s not necessary that every country must be the same”.
Sheridan’s piece is only the latest example of the embrace of far-right figures within the mainstream media in Australia.
Sengul, who is a researcher on the communications techniques of far-right populism, told Crikey there was an ongoing “radicalisation of mainstream conservatives”.
“The far right has not moderated in the 21st century — if anything the opposite is true,” he said. “Which means that conservatives like Greg Sheridan who praise figures such as Viktor Orbán, Giorgia Meloni, Jair Bolsonaro and Ron DeSantis have shifted considerably to the right, not the other way around.”
In recent years far-right figures like Lauren Southern, Stefan Molyneux and Blair Cottrell have been given a platform on Sky News, while Cottrell has also featured on Seven and the ABC. Seven News Sydney’s Facebook account posted a poll calling for opinions on whether “anti-white racism” was “on the rise”, while the network, along with the Herald Sun and The Australian, spent months hyping an apparent crime wave committed by “African gangs”. We’ve seen conservative commentator Andrew Bolt worry in the Herald Sun about Jewish people who “keep their culture” and who form “colonies” as part of a “foreign invasion”. Far-right figures have been revealed by Crikey to write for Australia’s versions of The Spectator and the Daily Mail.
“The commercial pressures of media have aligned well with the communication style of the far right who provide them with conflict-driven, controversial and scandalous content,” Sengul said. “The media knows that the far right sells.”
He believes the process had been incremental but has accelerated in recent years.
“I don’t think there was one single watermark moment but rather a series of events and crises that elevated the far right: 9/11 and the War on Terror was a big one in the first two decades of the 21st century,” he said.
“Although they seem to have shifted to other issues at the moment, Islamophobia was the core issue of the contemporary far right, particularly after 9/11, and this aligned with the broader Islamophobic rhetoric that we were seeing from mainstream political parties.”
This Islamophobia, in turn, propelled a number of far-right parties in Europe into the mainstream, he said, adding there was every reason to believe this process will continue.
“The far right is incredibly effective at exploiting crises to their political advantage. We saw this around the global financial crisis, the 2015 refugee crisis, COVID-19 and now the alignment between so-called progressives and moderates and the far right around trans rights.”
History doesn’t repeat, but it sometimes rhymes. In the 1930s, with capitalism in crisis and working-class radicalism increasing, traditional conservatives struck deals with fascist parties. No fascist party ever came to power without some alliance with the traditional conservative right (both Mussolini and Hitler came to office as leaders of coalition governments with conservative and other right-wing members, appointed by conservative heads of state – King Victor Emmanuel in Italy, and the monarchist President Hindenburg in Germany).
Now, with neo-liberalism profoundly discredited and deep-seated economic malaise eating at the electoral base of mainstream right-wing parties, the right is ready to pivot to the extremes again. The US Republican party has already more or less openly given up on democracy, and is seeking to disenfranchise millions of people who they suspect will vote against them.
Hit the nail on the head.
Well said Andrew. Extremists and populists prey on people’s anger and sell them a pipe dream as a solution. The Australian “Left” are complicit in the rise of these extreme views by not engaging with the consequences of trying to prop up neo-liberalism.
Fair point, but I’d say ‘complicit’ is probably too strong a word.
It would be interesting to compile a list of left-wing parties who have (since the rise of neo-liberalism in the 1980s) both unapologetically opposed neo-liberalism and been elected by democratic means. (Rudd did, to his credit, publish an essay critiquing neo-liberalism in early 2009, and this seems to herald both a falling out with the Merdochs and the onset of a slow and not altogether voluntary act of political suicide by Labor).
I think the length of the list may tell us how ‘complicit’ the left have been.
Yep, well said. The banality of evil lies just under the surface.
“US Republican party has already more or less openly given up on democracy”
I don’t think the ‘more or less’ is needed here.
Andrew Bolt worries about Jewish people who “keep their culture” and who form “colonies” as part of a “foreign invasion”
I once imagined that the local indigenous back in the day, watching the early settlers, must have opined how they “refuse to learn the language, wont adopt the culture and insist on living in their ghettos”
Glass houses Andrew.
The great replacement?
Since all sensible people (like myself) stopped reading The Australian years ago, it’s gone to greater and greater extremes to ensure that the rabid right rump that still gives it the time of day are satiated and keep paying up. Hence commentators like Sheridan and Paul Kelly have shifted to the right, sensible centrists like Niki Savva have given way to the likes of Peta Credlin and Vikki Campion, and you will never again see the likes of the ACTU chief or Australian head of Amnesty International grace the opinion page.
Does Sheridan care? Maybe he just loves his paycheck more than his journalistic reputation.
As a fellow ‘sensible person’ I agree!! As for Greg Sheridan; what a pompous, irrelevant jerk. He is supposed to be a Foreign Relations ‘expert’ but has been wrong on so many occasions. Subscriptions and genuine readership must be falling!! Walking the dog in the morning, there are way more copies of the Canberra Times than copies of The Australian in the roughly 60 driveways!! so there you go- what more evidence is needed????
It’s funny how guys like Sheridan accuse centrist Labor politicians of being covert revolutionary Marxists, but when a group of actual fascists rebrands themselves, he bends over backwards to make them sound like a reading club of concerned mothers and patriots.
Thanks Charlie, a thoughtful article.
(One wonders if, at any point during the writing of his piece, titled “Hungary, and Florida, offer tips for conservative revival”, The Australian‘s Greg Sheridan was given pause by a caveat he kept adding into his rundown of parties across Europe that he argued showed the way forward for conservative values. See if you can spot the pattern:)
Having listened to an interview approx 2 years ago with Greg Sheridan about his book “Christianity -The urgent case for Jesus in our world”. I’m at a puzzle as to which Christian values to follow! Are they the one’s I remember being taught at church and school that were contained in the words and deeds of Jesus, or the one’s practised, taught and imposed by the many versions of Conservative Christian institutions?
(…that “[Hungarians] do not want to become a mixed race”..)
In 2018, at the War Memorial in Canberra, I was standing at the display about Darwin and the description of the Japanese treatment of POW’s, etc., I commented to the person standing next to me of how proud I was of how far Australia had come since WW2. In part, it was because my son had felt very comfortable in being able to fall in love with a lovely Japanese woman. And with two ‘mixed race’ grandchildren, I could not be more proud.
Maybe, Greg Sheridan is following the carefully constructed arguments of BA Santamaria and his ‘Point of View’ (probably the Max Gillies’ version of the mid-80s).
Sheridan is a long-time supporter of Far Right Dictatorships. He was an apologist for Suharto, Pinochet, Marcos & SLORC (Burma). During the 80s, he was also an avid supporter of Saddam Hussein, but turned against him after the US decided he was no longer their friend.
Ah, I remember old Bob Santamaria’s late night rants that started with his customary “goodeveningah” then railed about the evils of socialism and everything that wasnt catholic.
He was fun when broadcast early Sunday morning as a cleanser for the once revered Ch.9 show, Eponymous which ran for…2hrs (?surely not?) and was de rigeur for any well informed semisentient.
Yes I remember, as a kid of about 10 or 11, coming across him on sunday morn tv. I’m sure I wasn’t the only person to think ” who is this old nutcase” then go to one of the other 3 channels. Similar thoughts occur when Sheridan is on tv now.
It was compulsory for me to watch Bob S. growing up. No doubt one of the reasons I cancelled my team membership
Point of View used to be on Channel 9 on a Sunday morning as I remember???) – Ah I do miss a good Bob Wobblehead impersonation!!
The ones that align with the interests of rich old white men silly.