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As a pessimistic Boomer (and Big Law veteran) who channels Robert Bork, I regard the state of our politics in the MAGA era the same way Charles Dickens did in A Tale of Two Cities nearly two centuries ago: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” I try to temper my gloominess about the current zeitgeist by aiming for a perspective somewhere between Pollyanna and Jeremiah.

Thanks to President Trump, the 6-to-3 originalist majority on the Supreme Court is the only thing standing between us and the abyss—a hellish combination of Deep State corruption, socialist economics, cultish wokeism, and cultural degeneracy. Yes, President Trump has over three years left in his second term, and is heroically trying to drain the swamp. But Congress is gridlocked, the midterms loom, and recent election results suggest the MAGA agenda is not as popular as Trump’s 2024 drubbing of Kamala Harris might indicate. She was, after all, the weakest Democratic candidate for president since Michael Dukakis in 1988. Unlike Trump in 2024, the Bush/Quayle ticket won an Electoral College landslide, and a majority of the popular vote. The nation is much more divided now.

Despite all of this, unlike my friend Jesse Merriam, I am encouraged by the state of the conservative legal movement—at least relative to the Left’s capture of so many other American institutions.

Listen to the full conversation on the Perspectives Journal podcast, available to subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Amazon Music, and all other major podcast platforms.

In his opening essay, Jesse Merriam calls for a more positive, more substantive, and more ambitious legal conservatism. An almost exclusive focus on originalism, he suggests, has made the conservative legal movement too narrow, technocratic, and reactive. Merriam argues it has become overly concerned with means, such as the correct rules of constitutional interpretation, instead of ends, like securing the common good. It is too preoccupied with correcting old wrongs, like reversing erroneous precedents, instead of achieving positive results, such as fostering the conditions of a virtuous and orderly society. The scions of legal conservatism, Merriam contends, should learn from the great legal-political movements of the past like the New Deal and the civil rights movement and seek, through legal and political activism, to build the kind of legal order necessary to restore the nation’s traditional political identity.

On this episode of After America, Dr Ruth Mitchell, neurosurgeon and Nobel Prize winner with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, joins Dr Emma Shortis to discuss the 80th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Trump’s nuclear testing claims, American healthcare under RFK Jr.’s leadership, and the misogyny at the heart of key US institutions.

This discussion was recorded on Wednesday 19 November 2025.

1800RESPECT is the national domestic, family and sexual violence counselling, information and support service. Call 1800 737 732, text 0458 737 732, chat online or video call via their website.

A time for Bravery: what happens when Australia chooses courage is available for pre-order now via Australia Institute Press. Use the code ‘SAVE5’ to get $5 off.

Aiming Higher: Universities and Australia’s future by Professor George Williams is also available now.

Despite thousands of lawsuits against OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma now being settled, the opioid crisis continues to devastate families and communities. This is why there are massive national efforts to expand addiction treatment, develop non-opioid pain alternatives, promote natural remedies, and confront the Mexican drug cartels flooding America with fentanyl. In recent years, opioid-related deaths have finally begun to decline, suggesting those initiatives are starting to make a real impact. But that progress may already be slowing.

One, because it was honest – a rarity in this game. And two, because it was mad.

Turnbull gave the interview during a time of upheaval in the Liberal Party. He was being undercut by members of the right faction, such as senator Nick Minchin, Tony Abbott and Kevin Andrews, who had used the issue of climate change action as a launchpad for their wrecking.

“There is a recklessness and a wilfulness in these men which is going to destroy the Liberal Party,” 2009 Turnbull said.

He went on to say the Liberals would be destroyed if the issue wasn’t resolved.

”If Nick Minchin wins this battle, he condemns our party to irrelevance because what he is saying on one of the greatest issues and challenges of our time, one that will affect the future of the planet and the future of our children and their children, Nick Minchin is saying ‘Do nothing’,” Turnbull said.

In the same interview, the kicker: “We will end up becoming a fringe party of the far right.”

Turnbull was ousted the next day and the rest is history – Abbott beat him, then Turnbull won the battle against Abbott and that faction who had openly despised him since 2009, but lost the war, leaving The Lodge with a rather thin record as prime minister.

Money in the 2020s is in some respects very different than money in the 1920s, but as the Bank for International Settlements notes, the world seems intent on unlearning some important lessons. Who issues money, and how it is regulated, matter. Poorly regulated privately issued money is a recipe for disaster. Yet the Trump administration, in particular, seems intent on bringing “stablecoin” into the mainstream. Stablecoin are digital tokens that can be held in a digital wallet and used for payment on blockchains. Its defining characteristic is that the issuer promises it will be redeemed for an equivalent sum of whatever the token was originally issued in exchange for (e.g. if you provide $1 to get 1 stablecoin token denominated as a $1 token, the issuer promises to return $1 to you if you return your token). The dominant version of stablecoin are “asset backed” and “full reserve”. This simply means that the issuer takes the currency they receive and buys assets that it retains until needed to meet redemption requirements. In theory, high quality liquid assets stand behind the promise of redemption. There are currently around $275bn in issued stablecoins.

And it’s not because of some inherent aspect of Australian culture that wants to bet on two flies crawling up a wall. It’s the predictable outcome of a predatory gambling industry that successive governments have been unwilling to take on.

Every year, the gambling industry destroys lives, and it’s even plotting to expand its reach by targeting new demographics such as young women.

In 2023, after a parliamentary inquiry into online gambling (the “Murphy review”), it seemed like change might be coming. The inquiry included pollies from the Labor, Liberal and National parties, as well as independent Kate Chaney. Despite their usual appetite for animosity, the cross-party committee unanimously endorsed 31 recommendations to reduce gambling harm, including a phased-in ban on advertising for online gambling.

In his new book “From Resistance to Reform: Case studies of long term social justice advocacy in Australia”, Prof Philip Mendes presents a comprehensive historical and political analysis of four policy areas where reform was achieved after many years of neglect.

– Young people transitioning from out-of-home care
– Medically supervised injecting facilities
– Social security payments for the unemployed, and
– Compulsory income management

For each of these policy areas, Mendes presents the long-term chronology of the public policy debates, the key arguments and evidence presented by researchers and advocacy groups in favour of policy reform, the strategies used by policy advocates, and the contrary arguments presented by governments and other bodies, as well as other factors which may have hindered or enabled policy change.

Arguing that governments should introduce policy development processes and networks that include active engagement with knowledge from domestic and global research studies, this is critical reading for scholars and policymakers internationally on the dynamics of policy initiatives, outcomes and reform.

Prof Mendes joined us at the November 2025 John Cain Lunch, to give a presentation on his latest book Resistance to Reform: Case Studies of Long-Term Social Justice Advocacy in Australia.

This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

“How do we understand now if we don’t understand 1948 or 1917 or all the things that happened during the British Mandate?”

This is a central question Micaela Sahhar, author and educator, asks while dissecting her book, Find Me at the Jaffa Gate. Sahhar reframes these monumental events in Palestinian history through an intimate, granular lens of her own family’s displacement during the 20th century.

In Bruce McKenna’s piece for Perspectives Journal, ‘Embers of the Mass Party,’ he laments the failure of the New Democratic Party to build a meaningful membership culture and embrace mass politics. In its current state, the NDP has embraced a top-down and centralized leadership model where policy, communications, and strategy is developed in the leader’s office, and disseminated to the grassroots. McKenna thinks this approach is a mistake, arguing that, “with a stronger membership culture, bodies like federal and provincial councils, executives, and equity commissions would develop stronger legitimacy and policy capacity.”

While this has remained true for much of the NDP and its provincial wings, the Ontario NDP debate around nuclear energy, brought forth during its September 2025 party convention, demonstrates that a burgeoning membership culture in organizations like the Ontario New Democratic Youth (ONDY) can rekindle the mass party. Structures like ONDY and labour unions within the party itself, informed by social movements outside of the party, can support credibility and build capacity for NDP policy by engaging with membership and facilitating democratic policy development.

From hosting a sold-out Barrie, Bowers & Friends event in Sydney, to The Hon. Mike Rann giving the Dr Hugh Memorial Lecture in Adelaide, to appearing before the Senate, there was a lot to do! And that’s on top of all our research!

The post November 2025 Media Highlights appeared first on The Australia Institute.

Today’s budget was a missed opportunity. Every budget is a collection of political choices; the Chancellor could have chosen in this budget, and in every budget, to confront the reality that inequality is out of control and it’s doing real harm to our democracy, society, and planet. Instead, the Chancellor chose to design this budget […]

The post Budget 25: Billionaires Protected At Our expense appeared first on Equality Trust.

The American Mind’s ‘Editorial Roundtable’ podcast is a weekly conversation with Ryan Williams, Spencer Klavan, and Mike Sabo devoted to uncovering the ideas and principles that drive American political life. Stream here or download from your favorite podcast host.

Friends and Frenemies | The Roundtable Ep. 295

A recent White House meeting between Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani gave the president a chance to flip the script while publicly debasing the rhetorical currency of the “anti-fascist” Left. In this special holiday episode, the guys are joined by Matthew Peterson to discuss the president’s latest strategy, and answer listener questions. On the docket are emerging factions within the conservative movement, federal leniency on Antifa post-domestic-terrorist designation, and more. Plus: The crew gives thanks and share holiday plans, antics, eats—and cultural recommendations!