Trouble for the bubble down under

Saturday the 18th May 2019 proved an "inconvenient truth" for the inner city agitators and climate warriors. It was also a reality check for many in industry who have adopted fashionable positions on religion, marriage, immigration, diversity, economic and green causes. Being surrounded inside the bubble with so many echoing the same things, the fact that these views aren't widely shared outside the bubble may have come as a shock.

And much like the denial, dismay and denigration from Democrats in the US following Trump's election, the commentariat of the Australian left haven't coped too well.

"Australians are dumb, mean-spirited and greedy. Accept it," said nightly TV host and comedian Meshel Laurie in response to the result.

"We may have to declare war on Queensland," said Mike Carlton – a former high profile national political journalist. (He was blaming the result on Queensland voters who resoundingly abandoned Labor and the climate agenda).

Former media columnist Clementine Ford was "crying over the climate destroyed, bullshit world Australian voters are determined to leave (to her children)."

Another former journalist - Margo Kingston - who led an alliance of left leaning independent candidates campaigning on climate change declared "It is over. My idea of Australia is over. So be it. I'm retiring and having a life while it's left."

And Jane Caro – a feminist green social commentator, writer and lecturer – said "If the LNP wins we have decided to be a backward looking country in a backwater. I wish I was a New Zealander." Much like many US Democrats who reportedly wanted to escape to Canada in the aftermath of Trump's win?

The sentiments echo the now notoriously derisive 2013 comments from noted Sydney Morning Herald urban affairs writer Elizabeth Farrelly (who lives in trendy inner city Redfern in Sydney), who once described the suburbs of Australia in the following terms:

The suburbs are about boredom, and obviously some people like being bored and plain and predictable, I'm happy for them … even if their suburbs are destroying the world.

The Australian election proved the suburbs are anything but predictable, and political destruction awaits those who treat them with contempt.