Beware the sleeping giant! Beware the somnolent rage of conservative Australia! That’s what Malcolm Turnbull should be thinking about as he and his advisors consider their options for an early election and a double dissolution. At present they are watching the Coalition poll numbers plummet, to the point where their party is neck-and-neck with the ALP on a preferred-party basis. This is an astonishing result, given the deplorable status of Bill Shorten as preferred PM, the lack of any significantly popular high profile ALP figures, the ALP’s proven economic ineptitude, and the growing public awareness of the frightening control exercised over the ALP by the CFMEU and other rogue unions at both state and federal levels.

In fact, the progressivist elite running this country into the ground, for which Turnbull serves as increasingly inept front man, may have overplayed its hand as it relentlessly pursues its reckless drive to transform Australia into a progressivist utopia. One affront to common sense and common decency has followed another in a ruthless ‘shock and awe’ campaign. This might have been designed to overwhelm opposition but it has proven counter-productive in alienating the conservative vote.

The first sign of the power of this progressivist junta was its clampdown on free speech, signalled by Tony Abbot’s abject capitulation on the promised abolition of Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. This was accompanied by his government’s appeasement of radical and separatist Muslims and the continual state-sanctioned abuse of ordinary Australians who had the temerity to express any concerns about this and other vital issues. Abbot also implemented a ‘do nothing’ policy in respect to the ABC, the HRC, school curricula, and the leftist hegemony within the universities. This preserved the progressivist hold over the ‘commanding heights’ in Australia’s ongoing culture wars.

All this pales, however, in comparison with the progressivists’ ‘rolling thunder’ onslaught initiated once they had their man Turnbull in the Prime Minister’s chair. This was conducted on various fronts but is particularly concerned not only with appeasing Islamists but with institutionalizing state-sanctioned sexual extremism. Examples of the nature of this campaign are numerous. For instance, we first had the Safe Schools program, championed politically by Liberal progressivists Christopher Pyne and Simon Birmingham, allied with the Socialist Left premier of Victoria, and imposed on 12- and 13-year-old children in order to inculcate them into the values and behaviour patterns of the LGBTI community. Then, as we reel from that affront, we learn that even childcare centres are also to be used in a similar fashion. According to the Herald Sun

Toddlers will be taught about sex, sexuality and cross-dressing in a controversial national program being rolled out at childcare centres and kindergartens next month. Educators will be encouraged to use dress-ups to explain cross-dressing to kids and may even take group tours of the opposite sex’s toilets as part of the Start Early initiative.

The Start Early propaganda material will be provided by Early Childhood Australia, based on such controversial and sexually radical books as the book Children’s Sexual Development and Behaviour: Pants Aren’t Rude, by Pam Linke. It promotes the view that “children are sexual beings and it’s a strong part of their identity, and it is linked to their values and respect”, and that advantage should be taken of pre-school children found masturbating or cross-dressing to teach them the LGBTI-approved lessons about their sexuality and gender.

Both these programs are based on the premise that the state has both the right and capability to supplant parents and assume control over the most intimate areas of childhood development at the earliest possible age. Predictably, it generated a major backlash, but there is little indication that the government or its LGBTI puppet-masters will back down, beyond perhaps making some token gestures. However, while this ‘shock and awe’ approach to the wielding of political power is designed to cow and intimidate any opposition, it also reinforces the view that the Liberal Party, like the ALP and the Greens, has been effectively taken over by a very powerful and ruthless lobby group obsessed with sex and has no particular commitment to the general economic and social welfare of mainstream Australia.

Indeed, this is happening in a period of economic crisis, where, for example, house prices in Sydney are now over twelve times the median yearly household income (historically the ratio has been about three times), and a large part (40%-plus) of an entire generation appears certain to be locked out of home-ownership, with disastrous social consequences.  But, instead of dealing with such vital issues, which will concretely shape the lives of millions of ordinary Australian families for decades to come, the dominant progressivists in the Liberal Party are falling over themselves to placate LGBTI demands for favourable ‘sex education’ propaganda for a homosexual cohort that constitutes less than 3.5 percent of the population.  Ultimately, all Australians, straight and LGBTI, are going to be massively impacted by the general economic decline that is setting in. But instead of concerning themselves with the big picture, Liberal quislings fret about the narcissistic obsessions of a tiny minority of 34,000 same-sex couples — about 1% of all couples in Australia.

At a time when massively important economic decisions have to be made, the progressivist Liberals exhibit no greater desire than to compete with the ALP and the Greens for the favour of the LGBTI lobby. And this has one aim only: the propagation, using the full force of state power, of sexual values and forms of behaviour that have throughout the history of the human species been treated as marginal, even deviant. This bizarre capitulation was symbolized by Turnbull’s highly publicized, selfie-obsessed  attendance at the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, and ‘sealed with a kiss’ when the high profile gay Liberal MP, Trent Zimmerman, passionately embraced ALP leader Bill Shorten for the cameras.

Predictably, this progressivist capitulation and accompanying grandstanding is driving conservative and moderate voters away from the Liberal Party and the political centre. However, they are not shifting to the left as the progressivists would prefer, but to the right where they were supposed to have nowhere to go, as Turnbull and his advisors so arrogantly insisted when he seized power. These power brokers decided that the loss by a Turnbull-led Liberal Party of disgruntled conservatives outraged by its wanton progressivism will be outweighed by its appeal as a more moderate party to swinging voters. As Liberal pollster Mark Textor contemptuously observed about conservative voters:

“The qualitative evidence is they don’t matter,’’ Mr Textor said. “The sum of a more centrist approach outweighs any alleged marginal loss of so-called base voters. (emphasis added)

But what if he’s wrong and a significant proportion of conservative voters turn against the Liberals? One option for them is to vote informal, leaving the Liberals with a significantly reduced vote that would deliver power into the hands of the ALP, given the expected flow of preferences. Turnbull and advisors like Textor might be calculating that such voters (being conservative and sensible) will refrain from taking such a step. However, Turnbull has offered them nothing, as he and his henchmen seem to delight in emphasizing. Consequently, given the way things are going, what do they have to lose by voting informal?

Or conservative voters might decide that a Turnbullite Liberal Party is simply Labor-lite, and vote for, say, the Australian Liberty Alliance. Such a strategy would be especially effective in the Senate, where the ALA is fielding quality candidates, and these might well enjoy the type of bargaining power exploited by the current crop of (accidental and irresponsible) cross-benchers, while having, of course, a comprehensive political platform that addresses the mainstream concerns that the Liberals have abandoned.

Either way, Turnbull has to face the possibility that the giant sleeping mass of pragmatic, commonsensical  and conservative voters is awakening. At present, all indications are that they are sick of being taken for granted and are affronted by the progressivist onslaught, especially as it affects families. Without some unlikely concessions and a shift back towards mainstream issues and values such a cohort might finally give up on the Liberals, concluding that their best strategy is to bring it all to a head and force a re-alignment of Australian politics, in a manner similar to what it presently happening in the US. If this occurs Turnbull will have a place in Australian history as he so desperately craves, but it will not be one to be proud of.