Firstly, the candidate in question, Ms Shan Ju Lin, is of Asian descent. Her being preselected in the first place confounds the beloved narrative of lefties that One Nation is composed entirely of mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging, redneck racists. And the fact that she was ultimately punted for anti-gay comments gives the lie to the view that they're all deeply homophobic as well!
That'll cause some big time cognitive dissonance for more than a few lefties I'm sure. It'll be a challenge for the poor little poppets to reconcile it in their tiny collectivist “minds”. I suspect that some will say Hanson actually punted her for being Asian, not the purported reason ... But of course that begs the question of how she was preselected originally. This will provoke even greater anxiety -- though nothing that an extra-long session of bong-suckling won't assuage, natch!
While this episode is no doubt highly embarrassing for One Nation, it's the kind of thing that happens pretty regularly in the two major parties as well -- particularly the LNP. It seems that every few months there's a report about how some newbie pollie has been expelled for some previously overlooked sin -- usually to do with sex, business dealings or “wrongthink”.
The decisive way Hanson has handled this episode implies that while One Nation has not reached the level of “professionalism” (for want of a better word) of the main parties, it's waaay better run than it was in the early days. That means that the death due to dysfunction so many on the Left predict for the party is unlikely to occur.
Pauline Hanson is no longer beyond the pale. She has to be taken seriously by the political establishment and mainstream media. Shunning and abuse will no longer work to keep her at bay. On the contrary, it will just increase her momentum. 2019 is gonna be very interesting indeed.
UPDATE: Exactly what I was referring to above.
White supremacist party One Nation dumped candidate Shan Ju Lin for being... HOMOPHOBIC?? #WTF pic.twitter.com/OZe9Ep9itT— John Johnsonson (@JohnJohnsonson) January 8, 2017
After the Rod Culleton debacle Pauline is not inclined to pussyfoot around. Stick to the script or you're out.
ReplyDelete...one day later, it seems Pauline has fallen into her previous pattern of having one 'gatekeeper' who acts as the exclusive conduit between herself and the rest of the party. She had a succession of these twenty years ago; David Oldfield being the worst of those opportunists. Today it's James Ashby. That fella sure gets around.
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