Tony in fairyland

US politics is bananas and full of loonies with no grip on reality. We have Tony Abbott. Compare, contrast and discuss.





What happens when one party is dead-set on an ideological win, and ignores reality to pursue their own glory?

Australian politics is lately like the try-hard little brother of American politics. This is, while not great, at least not terrible. US politics has gone balls to the wall batshit insane. We, by comparison are just putting on a funny hat and saying 'derp' a lot.

Still there is an interesting comparison to be drawn between our conservatives and theirs. Both are currently trying to slave any and every issue to a very personal ideological agenda.

Here in Australia, Tony Abbot has been throwing a tanty that would do any toddler proud since the last election that installed a minority ALP government. Tony's case is simple - while he still didn't get the majority required by Australian electoral law to form government, he reckons he got close enough, and should be PM based on his plucky, can-do attitude.

Ever since that so-close-you-can-taste-it defeat, every single issue facing the Australian Parliament has somehow backtracked to why we should have an election on the subject, and why Tony should win that election and be PM. It's remarkably similar to if you're sharehousing, and you split up a bill, but refuse to pay it until all of your housemates declare you king of the house '4 evar and evar'. Never mind that going to an election over every issue Parliament needs to discuss, is blatantly ridiculous, Tony's gang of Coalition sycophants, including the particularly noxious Chris Pyne, Joe Hockey and Barnaby 'No F@gs!' Joyce, have been actively sabotaging anything they can get their hands on to force an election.

Needless to say, this is hypocritical behaviour. The only reason the Coalition has numbers is because of the stultified marriage with the Nats. They don't talk anymore, they sleep in separate beds, the sex has long since become boring, but still the marriage drears on day after day. For all their accusations that the ALP and Greens are pursuing a secret, united socialist agenda (they're not), Tony sits on top of a party that the Libs ceased even paying lip service to years ago.

So we see pairing thrown out the window, breaking a promise made after the last election, we see Craig Thompson pilloried day in, day out (who hasn't been charged with anything yet), while a Lib back bencher is actually facing a real criminal charge. The Carbon Tax, only unpopular because of a concerted program of outright lying by the mining industry, has the phrase 'Call an election Ju-Liar!' screamed every time it is mentioned, while the Libs casually forget, that they have no functional policy to replace it, and half their party actually support the CT anyway.

Come fly with me to the magical US of A. Here in this big, brash, brassy land of other things that start with 'b' (bullshit comes to mind), the madness is in full steam. Day after day Republicans and Tea Partiers roundly attack their President for his fiscal mismanagement, while casually flying headlong into the fact that this is not true. In all important factors, they are wrong - Government spending is down 80% under Obama, the deficit is shrinking slowly instead of skyrocketing rapidly as it did under Bush, private sector job growth is shambling upward instead of plummeting downward, etc.

But the fools want the government to show the kind of fiscal responsibility Bush did (which should scare the wet blueberries out of anyone who lives in the US). As a result, anything and everything is used as leverage for a budget cut, preferably directed at Social Security (which runs at a surplus, has a trust in the trillions, and is financially secure for the next 25 years).

And here's where we enter the Twilight Zone of ridiculousness. Republican House Majority leader Eric Cantor, demanded - even as Hurricane Irene was lashing his NATIVE Virginia - that NO hurricane relief would be approved unless the government directed budget cuts at Social Security and other, you know, useful services. The ever loony married-to-a-gay-man Christian reconstructionist Michele Bachmann has lately said that the Hurricane was God telling Obama to cut health education and welfare spending.

The right are so focused on their (completely not founded in any way) goal of cutting health, education and welfare spending, they will do anything, say anything to get it. Just so they can finally get a black man out of the oval office.

Back here, we have a washed-up shameless toadie, doing anything, saying anything, just so he can be Prime Minister. And then what Tony? And then what?