Bogan. Cooker. Racist. Woke. Lefty. Latte sipper.
We throw these words around as though they explain people. Mostly, they put people in a box and give us permission to stop listening.
The words change depending on who is speaking.
We may believe these words make our case. They usually do the opposite.
I saw that when I spent five days handing out how-to-vote cards for the Community Independent candidate in Farrer. For much of that time, I stood beside the One Nation volunteers.
We talked, shared pastries and took turns doing the coffee run. I learnt their names and heard about their families, farms and communities.
I asked what had led them to One Nation. They talked about water, hospitals, services disappearing and decisions being made in cities by people who would never live with the results. Many had voted for the Coalition for decades and felt the party had stopped listening.
One Nation gave that disappointment somewhere to go. These people were talking about water buybacks, hospital visits and children leaving town. They were neither stupid nor aggressive. They had reasons for voting as they did.
One Nation tells people that educated elites look down on them. Call its voters stupid, backward or racist and you have helped One Nation prove its point.
It works both ways. Question a One Nation policy and you may be called woke before you have finished the sentence. Apparently, even a seventy-year-old dairy farmer can become an inner-city latte sipper without leaving the farm.
Once we put someone in a box, we stop being curious. We stop asking what happened, what changed and what might change again.
Labels end conversations. Questions start them.
If we want people to reconsider what they believe, insulting them is a very strange place to begin.
So, Lynne, how do you call to account an unprincipled, policy-vacant bunch of very doubtful political hopefuls with their equally doubtful populist backers and empty candidates?
Graham Pike
Jamberoo
Graham, One Nation should be held to account, but that means examining its policies, claims, candidates and conduct.
One Nation is a political institution. Its voters are people. Describing those voters as “equally doubtful” puts them all in one box and misses the distinction.
Populist parties are very good at turning criticism into claims of persecution, fake news and attacks from the establishment. Calling their supporters idiots, bogans or doubtful helps them make that case. Testing their claims against the evidence makes it much more difficult.
Some One Nation voters will never change their minds. The same is true of rusted-on National, Liberal and Labor voters whose parties can do almost anything without losing their support.
But many voters do change. Some people vote for One Nation because they feel ignored or want to protest. They may change again.
If we decide they are all beyond reach, we surrender that conversation before it begins.