Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese speaking at the National Press Club. Photo: Keegan Carroll
A bit over 50 years ago, psychologists came up with a nifty term for a condition that will ring bells with progressives right now: learned helplessness (LH).
Often linked to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), LH is when, despite your best efforts, you go through the same, stressful event over and over before throwing up your hands in despair: “I can’t change this, so why try?”
Three Federal election beatings on the trot, in 2013, 2016 and 2019, clearly qualify as repetitive stress for Labor people, most, if not all, of whom had that same sinking feeling when – on day one of the campaign no less – Anthony Albanese barfed up “the gaffe”.
The campaign has moved on from Albo’s “gaffe”, but the defeatist cringe following every setback lingers. In sight of victory, can Labor get over its particular manifestation of LH, think positive and ditch the ‘small target’ passivity that screams self-doubt and fuels qualms among voters?
For many on the Left, the programmed powerlessness of LH kicks in even when opportunities for change are right in front of them: like, y’know, when an election is called and the alternative government has a double-digit lead in the polls.
Exciting times, to be sure, but for the drumbeat of doubt embedded in our subconscious by the aforementioned reversals before being dragged, kicking and screaming, to the surface by one, hyper-publicised howler on unemployment numbers (below right):
A spate of News Corp front pages following “the gaffe” had the intended impact on our national zeitgeist. The Right was energized, while anyone who dropped by leftie Twitter was drowned in a tsunami of tears from the LH crowd (“Albo’s not up to it; why do I bother?”), allayed somewhat by anger at egregious media bias among a hard core which will fight on no matter what.
Their state of mind was mirrored by the two candidates: Morrison’s swagger and bluster betraying a confidence – nay, arrogance – absurdly at odds with the poll deficit he carried into April; and as for Albanese, he entered the campaign with a clear case of stage fright – the clenched jaw, the dry mouth, the lack of eye contact – before “the gaffe” made things that much worse.
Who could blame him for a case of the jitters? “Albo” knows the behemoth he’s up against.
In most instances, LH refers to the helplessness one might learn over years spent in a dysfunctional relationship or placating an overbearing employer, but this is different. This descended from the clouds, a premeditated, mass traumatisation of the Left by the same elite responsible for those three election embarrassments.
I refer, of course, to the proprietors of corporate media, whose ownership of television, radio, newspapers and kindred web content is the most concentrated in the developed world. So comprehensive is their power that these media oligarchs control and contort the ‘reality’ we see and how we define it.
Combine that overwhelming power with a determination to preserve elite privilege and what you get is the kind of election ‘coverage’ you’d more readily expect in a banana republic, and an Australia which, of late, barely resembles a democracy. Perhaps Rob Hirst of Midnight Oil summed it up best in “Outside World” (1982) which, clearly, was way ahead of its time:
LH and other stressful syndromes like overthinking have hamstrung the broad Left, both here and overseas, for decades. Well before Albanese perfected the art of ducking and weaving his way to a half chance of victory, US Democrats were the benchmark in passive politics, often obsessively overcautious as they plodded to three successive electoral maulings in the 1980s, two avoidable squeakers against dumb-as-a-rock George W Bush, and the “how could they have possibly lost?” debacle against sociopathic, mob-connected, Moscow-compromised Donald Trump (2016).
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The Democrats’ litany of errors back then has echoes in the here and now. Anxious not to offer an opening for their opponents to pounce, successive US campaigns employed milquetoast messaging, often with a dearth of detail, opening themselves up to the same charge Albanese now faces: “nobody knows what he stands for”.
The Democrats had a similar ‘eggshells’ approach to picking their candidate, choosing such charisma-challenged nominees as Walter Mondale, Al Gore and Hillary Clinton who, like lukewarm Albanese, were seen as “moderate”, or a “safe pair of hands”. This left them at risk of being overwhelmed by ‘bigger’ personalities like a Trump, their cautious approach open to the same accusations Morrison’s leveling here: “he’s uncomfortable in his own skin”.
Worst of all, this stressful ‘paralysis by analysis’ leaves the broad Left flat-footed against what Americans call the “October surprise”, a last-minute gambit usually aimed at “wedging” and demoralising progressives while conversely energizing conservatives. Not satisfied with just one wedge, Morrison has unleashed three: the threat posed by “scary China”; offshore detention for “scary brown people”; and, most objectionably, “scary trans people in sports”.
Despite such built-in disadvantages, there’s reason this year for Labor to shrug off “the gaffe”, shake off its LH and approach this year’s campaign with some confidence. Latest polls continue to show anything from a six-to-10-point Labor lead, two-party preferred, suggesting the baggage Morrison has accumulated over four very mixed years as PM is weighing him down.
Then there’s the ‘teal’ independents, whose candidacy in hitherto safe LNP electorates makes it that much harder for Morrison’s side to win the 76 seats it needs to govern outright. Polling in Kooyong (Vic), Goldstein (Vic) and Wentworth (NSW) suggests at least a few high-profile casualties on the coalition side.
Some voters may be reflexively resisting Morrison’s message, in line with that old saying: “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me”. As Donald Trump (above) can attest, sooner or later the punters will be onto you, the walls will close in on you, and all the gaslighting and slipperiness which worked a treat in the early going just won’t cut it.
As psychologists point out, catastrophising over “the gaffe”, and all the other manifestations of LH, is utterly irrational. Albanese’s lapse occurred almost six weeks out from polling day; when asked if it mattered to them, just one hand from a Q+A studio audience went up.
With the possibility of change just weeks away in the form of a federal ICAC, tougher carbon emissions targets and, perhaps, a judicial media inquiry, elite anxieties are being repackaged and boomeranged back at Labor (and other Australians) in the form of division, fear, absurdly-amplified gaffes and all of the dastardly, psychological effects they bring to the grizzled veterans of 2013, 2016 and 2019. Lest they forget.
With this much at stake, is the Left going to throw up its collective hands in despair and succumb to LH based on nothing more than a piddling brain fade? A hard-fought win on May 21 might be the best therapy.
