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The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, has urged progressives not to disregard voters that are attracted to One Nation’s message in the Bernie Fraser oration at the Shine Dome in Canberra last night.
Chalmers said Pauline Hanson would be a disaster in government, calling One Nation “inexperienced, incompetent and incapable of managing the economy or our international reputation”.
Our role as progressive people is not to scold those who see appeal in that message. It’s not to mock them, dare I say cancel them, or talk down to them.
The far right strategy is to divide people and it’s working; their goal is to talk down our economy so that their endless negativity becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Their core message is often clear and sometimes very appealing: let’s just go back to a more nostalgic version of the world we remember.
We have all the facts to push back on this, but facts don’t beat feelings. Feelings are as real as facts.
