By its own admission, for the Liberal party it’s a case of change or die, but on the current trajectory outlined by its “everything old is new again” leadership team it may well be change and die anyway.

In “chasing the noise”, as the veteran Liberal strategist Tony Barry describes it, the party has convinced itself that the only way to survive is to lean further to the right.

We’re talking Trump-style nationalism, Farage-style protectionism, One Nation-style populism.

Drenched in xenophobia and division, this is the ultimate representation of political selfishness, designed purely to save the skin of the party by fomenting outrage to the broader detriment of our multicultural society.

The Coalition did a preference deal with One Nation at the last election and voted with One Nation in the Senate about 80% of the time under both Morrison and Dutton.

So, the erosion of values has been creeping for a while but has been less overt than in the northern hemisphere, with good reason.

When you fly over the United States as I did many times in my years as a foreign correspondent there, you will see the lights of major population centres across the inland.

This is where Trump’s heartland is. He took his initial ground in rural areas and the populated fringes of the inland cities, many of which were negatively affected by open world trade rules and immigration. In 2024, he extended that impact into the fringes of Democrat strongholds even along the coasts.

Sign up: AU Breaking News email

This was Scott Morrison’s election........

© The Guardian