It’s said that what the world needs today are strong leaders whom social media and associated propagandists insist are the only ones who can bring order back into a dangerously chaotic world. Their strengths, it is claimed, outweigh their shortcomings. In Australia, attention is turning to Peter Dutton, who according to his supporters, is the epitome of a strong leader. 

What is a strong leader?

In his 1988 book, Strong Leadership: Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and an eminent person, the late Dr Graham Little wrote: “Strong Leadership is tied to […] a view of human affairs that makes civilised life the equivalent of organised, disciplined and conventional thinking and acting.” His focus on Thatcher was spot on. It is arguable however that while Reagan might have appeared strong, he was really only obediently copying Thatcher, of whom he was somewhat fearful (see Ronald Wapshott, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher: A political marriage). Little’s “eminent person,” Malcolm Fraser, was in fact a far more complicated personality than Little’s characterisation allowed for.

The primary characteristic of strong leaders today — for example, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping — is their capacity to impose their will on their followers and the population at large through a mixture of guile, ideological posturing, threats and bullying, the backing of powerful stakeholders and above all, their preparedness to liquidate those who threaten their hold on power.

As Hannah Arendt showed in The Origins of Totalitarianism, Stalin and Hitler personified the most extreme features of modern strong leaders, mainly through their use of terror. Stalin’s genocidal policies directed against the Cossacks and Hitler’s Holocaust against the Jews in Europe are examples of the extent to which strong leaders will go if they are not stopped in their tracks. Mao Zedong belonged to the same club, overseeing the deaths of somewhere between 30 million and 60 million Chinese during his imbecilic “great leap forward” policy (see Frank Dikötter, Mao’s Great Famine, 1959-62).

Today Putin and Xi are the heirs of Stalin and Mao. They might be a little more nuanced in their methods, with their apparatchiks deploying hi-tech electronic surveillance devices to identify potential challenges to their leader’s power. Those apparatchiks are also adept at using social media to spread propaganda and lies. They can access sophisticated hacking equipment to disrupt domestic and overseas politics. Imprisonment, torture, poisoning, and murder of critics and opposition candidates are techniques all too readily available to Putin and Xi.

Of course, Putin and Xi are at the extreme end of the strong leader continuum. There are others who are less extreme, but who covet the resources that Putin and Xi routinely access in wielding their power. Donald Trump is the current standout example. He admires Putin’s iron grip on power and envies Xi’s forever presidency. He is bent on remaking the United States into a more authoritarian state by upending the separation of powers doctrine that has sustained the US as a system of representative government ever since the days of George Washington. However, Trump’s four years will not be enough to achieve his authoritarian ambitions. Will it be left to J.D. Vance to finish the Trumpian project? Or Baron Trump? Or Elon Musk? One thing is certain: his wild-eyed MAGA base will not inherit the earth courtesy of Donald Trump, they will become his victims. His plutocrat mates will inherit America, profiting from it, not serving it.

In Australia, Peter Dutton claims the strong leader mantle. He cunningly uses racist tropes, anti-immigration slogans, and (contrary to the facts) claiming that crime rates are rising to alarming levels, asserting they are the result of pandering to minorities. He makes vague promises about seemingly great things like nuclear energy while fluffing the details. This strategy is certainly aligned with the Trump’s “alternative facts” approach to reality. Dutton has stirred up destructive divisions in Australian society, adroitly shifting the blame for the divisions on to his opponents. His dismissal of ideas about constitutionally recognising Aboriginal Australians have a racist subtext that is especially nasty. While a pale imitation of Trump, he is still an imitation.

Inspiring leaders

Graham Little describes inspiring leaders as those who understand that “societies need structuring, the way a game does, requiring an orderly system of incentives and sanctions which gets work done and prevents the fragmentation and collapse that would come from too much spontaneity and change.” Inspiring leaders are able to articulate a vision of what is working well in politics and society and how those things can be sustained, while clearly conveying policies that show how things can be renewed and improved, while building support for innovations that will benefit the greatest number.

Australia has had some inspiring leaders in the past. John Curtin’s leadership during World War II held the country together as no other leader could have done at the perilous time. Ben Chifley continued Curtin’s legacy, inspiring voters to accept some of the most far-reaching post-War reconstruction policies and policy reforms ever seen in this country (see Stewart MacIntyre, Australia’s Boldest Experiment: War and reconstruction in the 1940s). Gough Whitlam inspired many Australians to think that their country could be a bigger and better place, a more progressive place.

However, arguably the most inspiring leader Australia has yet seen was a state premier: Don Dunstan in South Australia (see Angela Woollacott, Don Dunstan: The visionary politician who changed Australia). Dunstan was a complex man: educated, cultured, elegant. Yet he became the leader of the Labor party in South Australia and had a profound influence on Labor party policy Australia-wide. His policy innovations in South Australia were remarkable, including: recognition of Aboriginal land rights (his government was the first to do so), women’s equality and abortion law reforms, consumer protection laws, reforms to the criminal justice system, city planning and urban renewal – the list is long and impressive. Along with Whitlam, Dunstan persuaded the Labor Party to abandon its traditional support for the white Australia policy. He encouraged national Labor to think about Asia as its natural geopolitical location. He was a bold reformer, able to inspire voters to see beyond their immediate self-interests to a reachable and better world.

There are no inspiring leaders in Australia today, at the state level or the national level. If Australia is to succumb to the blandishment of would-be strong leaders, then the future will be bleak. There are some potentially inspiring figures among the independents in the federal parliament but they are not presently in leadership contention in any party or grouping in the parliament. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that a minority government relying on the support of key independents could see the latter emerge as inspiring leaders in a new form of coalition government – for example, independents like David Pocock, Zali Steggall and Helen Haines. But that assumes that a reconstruction of Australian politics is occurring, a reconstruction that in fact is already under way.

https://johnmenadue.com/strong-leaders-versus-inspiring-leaders-australias-current-dilemma/

SEE ALSO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mx7iywm_GZA

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

HYPOCRISY ISN’T ONE OF THE SINS OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.

HENCE ITS POPULARITY IN THE ABRAHAMIC TRADITIONS…

PLEASE DO NOT BLAME RUSSIA IF WW3 STARTS. BLAME AMERICA.