Almost a thousand years ago, a religious cult split in two because some beardy weirdo wanted to add “and the Son” to the mission statement, and preferred his sardines on leavened bread.
But mostly the Great Schism of 1054 was a grab for power, and set the template forevermore on how to git ‘er done.
Unable to reach compromise, said messianic cult split into what we now call the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, even though on most of the big issues (like pederasty) they remained of like mind.
A further split (Protestantism) occurred six hundred years later after a bunch of guys told the Pope to kiss his own ring; and that is Christianity as we know it.
Today I will argue that the conservative politics in Australia is poised on the same precipice as Christianity found itself in 1054, for the same fundamental reasons, and hence that the results will be identical.
Indeed one of Michel de Nostredame’s lesser known prophetic poems reads:
Eyes shut, Sussan shall be woken by fancy antick / The possum-caped shall be brought to nothing / The barnaby shall be punished for fickle frenzy / The traitors shall be ravaged in the chipmongers temple.
So it’s there in black-and-white.
Buckle-up kids, it’s time to predict the future again!
It is blindingly obvious that Opposition Leader Sussan Ley is the captain of a sinking ship. The rats in the ranks are deserting in droves as she helms an increasingly derelict Coalition.
The defections have been significant: Barnaby Joyce has announced his resignation; Andrew Hastie has withdrawn from the front bench; Jacinta Nampijinpa Price was punted for failing to toe the line.
Even yesterday, Ley’s criticism of former PM Kevin Rudd was described by her own backbencher Jane Hume as “churlish”.
Young voters are deserting the political right in Australia in droves, so much so that the LNP share of the House of Reps is expected to decrease by 35 seats by 2040. They currently only have 43, and the last time I checked 43 minus 35 equals not very fucking much!
Is it conceivable that the once-mighty Liberal-National Party could be reduced to a rump? Haven’t political pundits been telling us for ages that the world is becoming MORE and NOT LESS conservative??
I mean, Australia has a LOT of rednecks.
There are a metric fuck-tonne of crybaby conservatives out there on TikTok and elsewhere right now: “We wuz robbed!” and “Governor-General needs to sack the government NOW!” and “Waah! Wait, wut? MORE Indians? Waaaah!”
And fair enough too. If the LNP go the way of the Democrats and dinosaurs, what happens to the rednecks?
I don’t give a fuck, but for the sake of the haruspication let’s pretend I do.
I predict that the Libs will be absolutely humiliated at the next election, causing the National Party will secede and line-dance merrily into an ultra-conservative coalition with One Nation.
I said it now, and so it shall be.
Of course, the sticking point will be who lifts the shirt and who bites the pillow. The big dogs of the National Party? Pauline Hanson’s daughter? What if some heavyweight has-been like Clive Palmer chips in and demands a return on investment?
But (Lee Hanson) I have given you enough already.
You’ll have to join the rest of the dots yourselves.