MOVING TO FRONT FROM FRIDAY (NOV. 12), SINCE IT HAS GENERATED A QUITE INTERESTING SET OF COMMENTS
The rise of Murdoch's Fox News in America since 1996 has coincided with the complete crazification of the Republican Party in the U.S., with the result that America is now ungovernable and teetering towards collapse as a democracy (I discussed some of this development in this recent paper). Yet Murdoch's media empire has not had such deleterious effects in his native Australia. Here's the program of the Australian Liberal Party, the party of the right in Australia. With only a couple of exceptions, it's a set of proposals that would be associated with the more progressive end of the Democratic Party in the U.S.: spend money on infrastructure, on the elderly, on families, on healthcare, on women. Of course, Australian politics started from a different baseline, but the question that naturally arises is: why didn't the Murdoch media wreck Australia too?
I was discussing this with a friend who recently relocated to Australia, and her explanation was striking: mandatory voting. Everyone has to vote, which means elections (and, in the US, especially primary elections) aren't dominated by highly motivated partisans. Most people, so the hypothesis goes, are interested in stability, peace, and services, and since everyone must vote, that's what they vote on, with the result that even the right-wing party has to stand for a program that delivers stability, peace, and services. The Murdoch media rant and rave, as they do here, but since most people (including in the US) ignore the Murdoch media, their effect in Australia is muted by the fact that everyone is voting.
What do readers think?
