In response to Dave Horsfall’s letter (CCN 485), apparently if you are a fiscal conservative who wants to ensure a world where their children’s children won’t be in debt to their eyeballs and will have to work until they are into their 70s, you are labelled as a far-right-Trump-loving-gun-toting-card-carrying-Republican.
This is the problem with politics around the world; if anyone left of centre sniffs a single conservative thought you get labelled a Trump lover.
This is a major problem which prevents constructive discourse.
Whatever happened to genuine politics and discussion regarding the actual virtues and lessons from either camp?
I voted Liberal this election, not because of Trump, but because taxes are killing my household, the government spending needs to get under control, interest rates need to improve – it’s that simple.
We need to get Australia back on track and out of debt or we will eventually need to do something extraordinary like the US with the extensive cuts that have taken place.
Despite Dutton being a horrid choice, the Liberals at least would have applied a little more fiscal responsibility.
Email, May 9
Reece O’Keeffe, Gosford
To me, that’s not what Mr Horsfall’s letter said at all. Enough of the Coalition’s plans were similar to existing Trump policies that I don’t think the two can be fully disconnected, and the insurrection comment is more about the USA’s political culture than about conservatives.
In saying this, Reece, I fully support your sentiments on political discourse (plus the equivalent version for fiscal progressivism). We often view our political opposites as caricatures of themselves, and it gets in the way of many conversations we should be having. Because if there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that something needs to change.
The only way we’ll get that change is to start having more open discussions about what’s wrong and how to fix it, with all these pointless stereotypes forgotten about. Hopefully we can manage to do that before the 2027 State Elections 🙂