I’m an impulsive, emotional soul. I make decisions on the spur of the moment, based on my gut feeling. I’ll factor the ‘vibe’ into my reading of any situation. I’m not particularly shy of making my feelings known to others when I’m trying to make some changes in my immediate environment. Sometimes this has worked for me - a certain degree of empathy has allowed me to avoid some dicey outcomes. Overwhelmingly, however, these tendencies have not ended well for me - I’ve ended up with significant debt, have had to make grovelling apologies and have been slapped in the face more than once. So I’m not entirely sure I consider these attributes to be positive, which is why I become alarmed when I see them wholeheartedly embraced by our political leaders.

While the Gillard government has shown itself to be over-reliant on focus groups and never ending polling, it’s the conservative side of politics that has given me the most cause for concern in their grab for potential votes. In the sudden lurch towards Tea Party politics - something that’s working shockingly well in the United States - the quality of public debate in Australian politics has crumbled under the weight of a shouting, cackling, cawing mess.

We saw the first stirring of this new tendency in the wake of the 2010 election, when a bitter undercurrent of frustration bubbled up through the letters pages and social media streams of the nation. Gillard had toppled Rudd, now she’d managed to dodge the democratic process, the wishes of the people, by forming an alliance with the Independents. Despite the fact that all of this had occurred within the structures of our parliamentary system, the public’s sometimes clouded view of what constitutes our democratic system saw it a kind of oligarchic shuffling.

As the months wore on, rather than tackling the lackluster, uninspired policy decisions made by Labor head on, the Liberal Party under Tony Abbott decided that it was this simmering anger that would restore them to government. So they opted to ferment it, whip it up. Many of the tropes of Tea Party rhetoric were employed by the Opposition and related groups - stoking fears of a ‘Big Government’, the demonizing of immigrants and labour organizations, astroturfing in the formation of ‘grassroots’ groups that would later organize the Carbon Tax protests.

It was at the Carbon Tax protests that we saw the result of this ugly politicking, this tendency towards muck-throwing and hysteria. Rather than a dedicated, singular voice raised towards an undefined, unexplained piece of taxation legislation, the assembled protestors - many bussed in by conservative radio presenters - let it all hang out. What was on display weren’t cogent, well-articulated arguments against a carbon tax. What we got was a bitter stew of misogyny, racist rhetoric, conspiracy theories and blind anger.

In the wake of the protests, nothing has been added to the debate. There are no great insights or well-reasoned points that have driven the popular debate regarding a carbon tax forward. Rather, what we have is a sniping, crowing cycle of recrimination that has played out across opinion pages, panel shows and comment sections across the nation. It’s a playground slanging match, writ large.

The thing is, this does nothing for the Liberal agenda. Rather than knock the foundations of a carbon tax from beneath it, it frames the Opposition as more focused on throwing dirt, attacking in a malicious unfocused swarm. The debate revolves around the approach, rather than the policy. That will work for Labor - is working for Labor.

The recent carbon tax protests and the angry, unthinking hatred it has awoken in certain segments of the Australian population are a very real glimpse of what our political discussion could become if our political parties - particular those on the conservative side - start to employ Tea Party politics. Mindless mudslinging and clouding minds with anger never made anything clearer. They just make us the Mucky Country.

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