What’s happening in the Victorian Liberal Party ahead of the state election this month? It’s running ads attacking COVID vaccinations and siding with extremist protesters, using offensive language to describe Premier Dan Andrews — one of its candidates called for Andrews to be “brought to justice” for murder.
The party has been infiltrated by far-right religious groups that attack LGBTIQA+ people and women’s reproductive rights. The Liberals have previously encouraged lurid conspiracy theories about Andrews, which News Corp is trying to revive, and multiple MPs have joined protests at which extremists demanded the murder of the premier.
This matches in every way the descent of the Republican Party into fascism in the United States: the embracing of extremism and conspiracy theories; the parallel activities with parts of News Corp to promote conspiracy theories; the mainstreaming of violent rhetoric against opponents and aggressive political tactics by religious fundamentalists. It’s at an altogether earlier and far smaller stage, but it copies in miniature what is occurring in the US.
The only element missing is an equivalent to the systematic and increasingly successful Republican effort to suppress Democrat voters in the US, although that remains a long-term project of certain sections of the federal Liberal Party.
The NSW Liberal government is a very different story. While possessing its own clutch of extremists and fundamentalists, it operates as a modern, moderate, interventionist government committed to climate action, increasing female participation and improving early childhood education and a major infrastructure program. Its main problems relate to its forced relationship with the toxic National Party, but that has been overcome on key issues such as climate action.
NSW and Victoria thus present as two models for the Liberals — Republican extremism, or a more traditional Liberalism that incorporates conservatives and moderates, accepts rather than seeks to block social change, and believes not in small government but in effective government to help a market economy operate in the interests of its citizens.
Even if the Victorian Liberals are mini-me Republicans who are unlikely to win government, don’t discount the threat they pose in alliance with News Corp, especially in more difficult economic times. Conservative strategists circulate between the Tories in the UK, the Republicans in the US and the Liberal Party here, identifying what works and what doesn’t in victory and defeat, always looking for ways to keep progressive opponents out of power or, when they lose, minimise the length of time they are out of power.
The risk is still greater if the NSW Liberals are defeated in March, delivering the “lesson” that moderate, active government doesn’t work for the Liberals.
Recent Liberal tradition also suggests that Republicanisation will have appeal at the federal level: after removing the moderate Malcolm Turnbull, the Liberals found success with Tony Abbott, who borrowed heavily from the Republicans in terms of climate denialism, hysterical propaganda and personal smears, misogyny and aggressive rhetoric towards opponents.
Abbott standing in front of signs calling Julia Gillard a witch and a bitch, or the Liberal fundraiser with a menu making disgusting jokes about her appearance, or the baseless Coalition-News Corp smear campaign against Gillard about her employment before entering politics, were straight from the Republican playbook, too.
Since then that playbook has been rewritten to incorporate the tactics of Donald Trump — relentless lying, violent rhetoric against politicians and the media, anti-Semitism, attacks on the basic rights of women, conspiracy theories. The recent attempt by female federal Liberal MPs to pretend they were victims of bullying suggests they’ve been paying attention.
With US democracy teetering, and a slide into right-wing authoritarianism in that country a real possibility, don’t discount the efforts by similar forces here to achieve a similar outcome.
