Extract from The Guardian
The lives of ordinary voters have been transformed. Politicians and the media need to go back to talking to real people
Each time, pollsters, pundits and political reporters were caught by
surprise, left to ask themselves “how did we get it so wrong?”
While plenty of factors are at play the major one is that most journalists, politicians, staffers and bureaucrats are part of an increasingly insular elite. What’s more, they are deeply connected with the parts of society that have won out of 30 years of globalisation.
On the other side are the voters who have delivered these electoral upsets, broadly made up of the people these massive economic shifts have left behind.
Confirmation of this comes when you look at the precinct by precinct results in the United States. Across America, the bustling cosmopolitan centres that are home to the new “knowledge economy” stuck with Hillary. Glance at neighbouring counties, centres built around traditional industries like manufacturing or agriculture, and the swing went violently the other way.
Trump didn’t transform these voters. In fact, without the classic campaign infrastructure he didn’t even directly approach most of them. But he connected to them with messages that affirmed what they already felt: that the political elite and the mainstream media were ignoring their concerns.
Australia’s political landscape may be less polarised, in a large part because we dodged the worst of the global financial crisis, but the same disconnect, the same distrust of politics-as-usual, is driving a similar voter shift.
One of the key reasons is that our national political coverage is driven out of the press gallery, a group isolated from the real world at parliament house, ensconced in an artificial bubble of spinners, bureaucrats, staffers, and politicians.
When these reporters do step outside, it’s onto the streets of Canberra – the Australian city least representative of the social, economic or ethnic makeup of the rest of our nation. Its population is overwhelmingly well educated, plugged into the knowledge economy, and doing well for themselves.
The only foray into the wild frontier of middle Australia comes weeks out from an election campaign, when the inhabitants of marginal seats are studied with the exotic wonder of David Attenborough watching a herd of rutting wildebeest.
The rest of the time journalists are caught up in the outrage-peddling, the number crunching, and the deal-making.
They failed to recognise the simmering anger, the feelings of injustice, the reality of growing inequality, and the deep-seated fear for the future that has taken hold in electorates stretching from the US rust belt to suburban Australia.
Examine the location of media resources in Australia. Greater western Sydney, home to one in every 11 Australians does not have a single political reporter based there. The ABC, which has a mandate to tell the stories of all Australians, has just two reporters based in the region – one per million people. The Daily Telegraph – self-styled champion of western Sydney – no longer has any. New media not only lack journalistic resources on the ground, they rarely feature contributors from the region. Instead, stories about vast swathes of Australia are reported by outsiders, if at all.
The political class is no better. As an ordinary punter it is almost impossible to have your voice heard. Letters, emails, requests for meetings, all are ignored or palmed off by staffers who see their role as gatekeepers, rather than facilitators of democratic debate.
In this isolationist culture, special interest groups have exclusive access, but the public has none. It has given birth to a whole industry of lobbyists. Organisations pay door openers to get access to politicians. Those with the best connections, or the deepest pockets, get the greatest hearing.
While real people juggle the kids, mortgage and work, the media – egged on by the equally insular Twitterati – works itself into a frenzy about gaffes, scandals, or the slightest hint of conflict within parties. Fresh-faced reporters lacking the skills to examine policy implications instead resort to sports reporting: what’s the latest conflict, who’s holding their side back, and who’s in front in the race for office.
The hard work of talking to real people and telling their stories has been lost. The disconnect between the real-world worries facing these voters, and the insular world of politics and the media, grows deeper.
With automation, offshoring, outsourcing, casualisation, technology and globalisation continuing to radically transform the world these voters live in, their concerns only grow. Meanwhile, the people who are not facing the loss of jobs, conditions, or even whole industries continue to cheer on the transformation.
Put simply, media outlets in Australia, the US, and the UK, and elsewhere have fallen victim to the same disease. They have stopped speaking to a huge chunk of society. More worryingly, they have stopped listening to them.
For those of us who want to counteract the rise of our very own Trump in Australia, we need to make changes. Politicians need to pull back from the carefully managed, top-down approach, and go back to talking to real people. The media need to do less preaching, and more listening. And most importantly, as a society, the economic winners from globalisation need to work out how to better share the spoils with those who are missing out.
The wonders of the new economy mean very little to the former automotive worker, coal miner, or power worker when they are standing in the dole queue.
Australia is home to a lot of angry people who feel they lack a voice. If the political and media establishment refuses to provide one, someone like Donald Trump will.
While plenty of factors are at play the major one is that most journalists, politicians, staffers and bureaucrats are part of an increasingly insular elite. What’s more, they are deeply connected with the parts of society that have won out of 30 years of globalisation.
On the other side are the voters who have delivered these electoral upsets, broadly made up of the people these massive economic shifts have left behind.
Confirmation of this comes when you look at the precinct by precinct results in the United States. Across America, the bustling cosmopolitan centres that are home to the new “knowledge economy” stuck with Hillary. Glance at neighbouring counties, centres built around traditional industries like manufacturing or agriculture, and the swing went violently the other way.
Trump didn’t transform these voters. In fact, without the classic campaign infrastructure he didn’t even directly approach most of them. But he connected to them with messages that affirmed what they already felt: that the political elite and the mainstream media were ignoring their concerns.
Australia’s political landscape may be less polarised, in a large part because we dodged the worst of the global financial crisis, but the same disconnect, the same distrust of politics-as-usual, is driving a similar voter shift.
One of the key reasons is that our national political coverage is driven out of the press gallery, a group isolated from the real world at parliament house, ensconced in an artificial bubble of spinners, bureaucrats, staffers, and politicians.
When these reporters do step outside, it’s onto the streets of Canberra – the Australian city least representative of the social, economic or ethnic makeup of the rest of our nation. Its population is overwhelmingly well educated, plugged into the knowledge economy, and doing well for themselves.
The only foray into the wild frontier of middle Australia comes weeks out from an election campaign, when the inhabitants of marginal seats are studied with the exotic wonder of David Attenborough watching a herd of rutting wildebeest.
The rest of the time journalists are caught up in the outrage-peddling, the number crunching, and the deal-making.
They failed to recognise the simmering anger, the feelings of injustice, the reality of growing inequality, and the deep-seated fear for the future that has taken hold in electorates stretching from the US rust belt to suburban Australia.
Examine the location of media resources in Australia. Greater western Sydney, home to one in every 11 Australians does not have a single political reporter based there. The ABC, which has a mandate to tell the stories of all Australians, has just two reporters based in the region – one per million people. The Daily Telegraph – self-styled champion of western Sydney – no longer has any. New media not only lack journalistic resources on the ground, they rarely feature contributors from the region. Instead, stories about vast swathes of Australia are reported by outsiders, if at all.
The political class is no better. As an ordinary punter it is almost impossible to have your voice heard. Letters, emails, requests for meetings, all are ignored or palmed off by staffers who see their role as gatekeepers, rather than facilitators of democratic debate.
In this isolationist culture, special interest groups have exclusive access, but the public has none. It has given birth to a whole industry of lobbyists. Organisations pay door openers to get access to politicians. Those with the best connections, or the deepest pockets, get the greatest hearing.
While real people juggle the kids, mortgage and work, the media – egged on by the equally insular Twitterati – works itself into a frenzy about gaffes, scandals, or the slightest hint of conflict within parties. Fresh-faced reporters lacking the skills to examine policy implications instead resort to sports reporting: what’s the latest conflict, who’s holding their side back, and who’s in front in the race for office.
The hard work of talking to real people and telling their stories has been lost. The disconnect between the real-world worries facing these voters, and the insular world of politics and the media, grows deeper.
With automation, offshoring, outsourcing, casualisation, technology and globalisation continuing to radically transform the world these voters live in, their concerns only grow. Meanwhile, the people who are not facing the loss of jobs, conditions, or even whole industries continue to cheer on the transformation.
Put simply, media outlets in Australia, the US, and the UK, and elsewhere have fallen victim to the same disease. They have stopped speaking to a huge chunk of society. More worryingly, they have stopped listening to them.
For those of us who want to counteract the rise of our very own Trump in Australia, we need to make changes. Politicians need to pull back from the carefully managed, top-down approach, and go back to talking to real people. The media need to do less preaching, and more listening. And most importantly, as a society, the economic winners from globalisation need to work out how to better share the spoils with those who are missing out.
The wonders of the new economy mean very little to the former automotive worker, coal miner, or power worker when they are standing in the dole queue.
Australia is home to a lot of angry people who feel they lack a voice. If the political and media establishment refuses to provide one, someone like Donald Trump will.
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