Thread by @Vic_Rollison

You can summarise why people voted Labor or Liberal this election like this:
👉🏻Labor - desperate for change
👉🏻Liberal - scared of change
This also equates to narratives of HOPE versus FEAR.
How did this play out? A thread👇🏻

Post election I’ve seen my Twitter feed look just like a Democrat’s, being mocked by Republicans, after the Trump victory. This election, and the reaction of voters on both sides, is scarily similar to US in 2016. This thread tracks the similarity and suggests why it happened.

To make it easier to differentiate, I’ll call all left wing voters ‘Labor’ and all right wing ‘Libs’, knowing both got preferences from either left or right minor and indies. Labor also means Labour Movement, which of course was asking people to ‘Change the Rules’.

Libs are mocking Labor tweeps with the same exact terminology as Trump voters - I’ve had a few laughing at my ‘liberal tears’. They think it’s funny that us Labor voters are so upset all the positive change we wanted isn’t happening. They think it’s a game and they’ve won.

This is basically akin to saying to people ‘ha ha, you wanted change and now you don’t get it’, like we’re children pining over a toy that has been snatched away from us.

I’ve been told my quite a few Libs that the election ‘doesn’t matter’ and to just get over it, likes it’s a football game that has no ongoing consequences for me and the rest of the country. There’s a ‘stick it up the know-alls’ vibe going on with Lib voters.

This anti-inner-city-elitist, ‘you can’t tell me what to do’ perspective has already been highlighted as a reason QLDers were unhappy that anti-Adani protestors travelled to QLD to convince voters not to support a climate-catastrophe mine.

The ‘don’t tell me what to do’ knee jerk against people who know more than they do about things like climate science ties into the mocking of Labor people for being upset. ‘You think you’re so smart but you lost - na na na na na’.

I’ve also had Libs tweet at me that climate change is not real, or it’s not a problem, or it’s such a big problem we can’t fix it - all convinced no action is needed. One Lib tweeted at me saying they do care about climate change but didn’t like Labor’s policy. All over the shop.

Labor tweeps like me are also now being moralised at by some journos for ‘talking down’ at QLD and WA voters who re-elected Lib govt - apparently if we were just nicer to them they wouldn’t vote against their best interests.

Oh, and don’t forget I’m also being mocked for caring about the fish kill and the environment more generally. Silly me! How dare I care to change a situation in which a million fish died!

What does this all boil down to? In the months after Trump won, progressives grappled with what happened. There are many theories but I would like to zero in on one based on the above evidence and comparison with US politics. It’s all about fear of change.

It feels to me like the Lib voters outside of the traditional blue ribbon inner city wealthy areas (which by the way mostly swung left), are pushing back against left wingers telling them they need to CHANGE - do better - be kinder, be more tolerant, do more for the environment

It’s not accurate to say the Lib swings happened in places of economic anxiety and job insecurity - that’s what some claimed was the reason Trump was elected. There were absolutely Labor swings in places of economic insecurity - much of that in inner cities!

So, what does differentiate the mostly regional Lib swings versus mostly metro Labor swings? Famous pollster Nate Silver analysed the difference between Trump and Clinton voters and found education was the biggest indicator, not income:
fivethirtyeight.com/features/educa…

Let me just say right here that it’s really hard to talk about educational attainment without being called an elitist and an intellectual snob and looking down at people. Can’t be helped. Analysis of this kind is needed, nonetheless.

I think voters who have less education are more likely to swing to Libs for these reasons
👉🏻Resent those with education telling them what to do.
👉🏻Less experience of change, more scared of it.
👉🏻Think they know best what they need - not someone else.
👉🏻Are easier to scare.

Think of a coal miner. They’ve been told for ten years they need to retrain for new jobs and frankly, this terrifies them. They reject outright climate change, not because they have considered the science, but because it represents such mass disruption, they run from it.

When they’re told by Scott Morrison that Labor’s climate policies and Labor’s anti-Adani protestors tell them they can’t work in coal - or aspire to work in coal - they get angry, resentful, lash out, vote Liberal. That’s one major reason Morrison won. He told them not to change.

I would like to point out that all voters are scared. I’m terrified of a Liberal govt because I see their policies as anti-environment, anti-worker, anti-education, anti-community. So please don’t tell me lefties aren’t scared. We’re terrified and we want change so we feel better

Libs are scared too - but they fear change more than they fear things staying as they are. To them, change represents something worse than they have now. To Labor voters, things need to get better.

I think this is also why Labor peeps are feeling so dispondent and, to speak of my own feelings - depressed. We now feel trapped in a society we wanted to change but have not been able to do that. We are now stuck with the problems we saw a way to fix.

I will thread again later about the part the media played in the Lib victory - again similar to Trump’s media environment. Let’s keep the dialogue open. Thanks for your comments. End.

One more - should have noted thr mega rich want to keep things the same - anti-change - because wealth inequality keeps them getting richer at our expense. That’s a given.