Gone By Lunchtime

The Meteoric Rise and Fall of Kevin Rudd

Former Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd has gone from hero to zero in a matter of months. Riding high in the approval ratings, he suddenly slipped down a long, slippery slope to where he was seen as a liability to his party's re-election. What caused the fall?

Some would point to his spectacular reversal on legislation allegedly to combat global warming. At least this was when the largely fawning media got the huff and started to tear into him. Overnight one started to see public media criticism of the Prime Minister, whereas previously they had reserved most of their scorn for Tony Abbott, leader of the Opposition.

But Rudd was between a rock and a hard place. The Senate had blocked his cap and trade legislation twice. There was little room to manoeuvre--the only solution was to take the issue to the electorate.

It seems as though the way he backed down was material and significant. And here we get closer to the underlying causes of Rudd's political demise. The Prime Minister had promoted the cap and trade bill and the threat of global warming in the most apocalyptic terms. Emotive and extreme language was employed that portrayed global warming as the most dire threat to humankind. It was a position into which the media were sucked, willingly and credulously. They became little cheerleaders. Then, when Rudd reacted to parliamentary defeat, not with the big bang of a dissolution of Parliament and an immediate election, but with the whimper of putting cap and trade on the backburner, the media and the chattering classes felt they had been had.

Suddenly, almost overnight, healthy scepticism returned and now everything which the Prime Minister said was treated with a large dose of Murray River salt.

It began to dawn upon folk that while Rudd talked up a big game (about lots of issues), his execution and delivery was shoddy, to say the least. He suddenly was seen as an empty bloviator, not an executor.

We believe that this is the Achilles heel of most left-wing politicians in the West. They come to power through telling the electorate what it really wants to hear--that the government will make a substantial difference. The majority of voters--not being Christian--long ago began to look to government as their god. The reins of political power are seen as making a difference, offering the prospect of salvation and redemption from what ails us.

Whether it is saving the world from global warming, recession, the extermination of whales, poverty, crime, illegal aliens--whatever the crisis of the day--gummint is the answer, for it holds ultimate power. This is the great secular religion of our day. All left-wing politicians (and most right wing politicians) believe this to be true--so they appeal to the electorate accordingly. "Elect us: we will solve the problems."

Right wing politicians tend to believe cynically that these are things which they need to say in order to get elected.  The difference is that left wing politicians really believe that they can solve problems and redeem mankind. They are more likely to be ideological zealots who believe most stupidly that the sheer attention and involvement of the government will automatically solve the problem--whatever it is. Another way of putting this would be that the Left credulously holds that passing laws and showering tax payer's money upon problems fixes them de jure and de facto. Naturally, focusing upon execution is not high upon the priority list--let alone paying attention to risks and unintended consequences.

Add to this the peculiar weakness of left-wing politicians to believe their own press. Think about Obama, Rudd, and Blair--all have spoken grandiloquently, with hyperbolic rhetorical flourish about what they would do and accomplish. They have come dangerously close to thinking that the rhetoric will call the reality into being. At this point they are very close to thinking themselves semi-divine--having the attribute of Deity to create out of nothing by the power of speaking.

Politically, this is playing with fire. The electorate willingly grants such leaders the benefit of the doubt. After all, they hold the reins of power. We all believe that the state is the ultimate authority and the very nexus of dunamis itself, non? Therefore, if our Prime Minister says it, it will be so. Media rapidly transform themselves into the celestial chorus, for the media also believes almost universally in the omni-competence of government.

But when the rhetorical flourishes prove to be empty vanities, the reaction can be very swift. Empty words and vain hyperbole on the part of government, when the established religion of society is statism, come perilously close to blasphemy. When the gods fail to deliver, the people get angry. Usually they vent their anger upon the priests. And in the post-Christian West, the nearest thing we have to priests is our government leaders.

Both Rudd and Obama have suffered falls from the highest peaks of popularity to the lowest depths of ignominy in a very short space of time. In both cases, the slide began when the perception dawned that the leader was incompetent and would not deliver. As soon as people began to suspect their leader's grand words were empty it was over. Their fall has been very great and very fast.

When politicians tell us how they will solve our problems through conjuring the powers of the state there is both larceny and brimstone in the air. Brimstone will always win out, for God will not be mocked and will not share His glory with another.