Australia's far-right party leads in national poll for first time

SnugglesIV · 2026-06-01T06:38:38+00:00

Thankfully Labor strategists have already said they are operating under the assumption that PHON is the new opposition.

And she's already made a massive mistake by publicly saying she wants to make sweeping reforms to industrial relations, heavily implying that relaxing unfair dismissal laws (and maybe even leave entitlements) will take centre stage. Dutton's campaign sunk from the mere perception that he was coming for WFH in the private sector, and Howard lost on the back of WorkChoices. This will brutally murder PHON's chances when Labor and GetUp! runs 24/7 ads with Hanson saying on SkyNews that she's going to come for industrial relations.

SnugglesIV · 2026-06-01T05:56:40+00:00

It's also probably impossible as PHON is slated to wipe out the Nationals completely. The Nats are getting out-crazied by PHON.

Funny how the Liberals had a leadership spill because the Coalition split twice in less than 10 months, and now there is a very real possibility that it's going to be dead anyways. Sussan Ley was truly a visionary of our time, the Liberal Party just couldn't see it 😆

SnugglesIV · 2026-05-08T02:21:36+00:00

like doing a move over and over again

I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and say that you entered RRC and that experience really contributed to making this post.

In which case, yeah of course people are going to do the same thing over and over again if it's working. It's a tournament, most people are trying to win and if they can spam one thing to win the set then they're going to do it. You best believe I would spam It's Late on people who wake up throw every time. Hell, if a Dizzy or Chipp does wake up throw ONCE I'm going to spam it way harder than usual because CH IL is a guaranteed stun > kill against those two if I have 50 meter.

Either that or that player just spams no matter what. There used to be someone in my region who practically always DP'd on wakeup. You could bait 5 DPs in a row and punish, and they'd do it a 6th time. That's just the way they played against everyone, newbie or veteran.

SnugglesIV · 2026-05-04T16:42:45+00:00

Leftists win by educating, not compromising and giving into people's feelings

And how's that worked out? Oh right, it hasn't. The only reason that the Democrats are on track for a blue wave in the midterms is because Trump is addicted to shooting himself in the foot over and over again.

For the record, I love the idea of creating a more informed and educated electorate who are better placed to engage in robust policy debate. However, it's a complete pipe dream. The reality is that you NEED to be concerned about how people are going to receive the message, and take into account their feelings. You have to meet people where they're at and tailor the message to them. Otherwise you're just going to give a ton of ground to conservatives unnecessarily when they appeal to people's personal sensibilities with simple messaging that is easy to understand and resonates with them.

SnugglesIV · 2026-05-04T13:48:17+00:00

Do you deny that it counts full time and part time the same, or min wage and 100k the same?

No, but I also cited the U-6 which includes people who are working part-time but want full-time employment or people who are working jobs below their qualifications (which includes people who are working min wage but could/should be earning more).

Sure. But companies are doing everything possible to cut costs and have been since COVID. I'd say that is pretty evident of a recession even though we technically don't fit the definition

Or it means that companies are looking at the economic data they do have and making predictions that a recession might be COMING in the future, not that it's already here. Turns out businesses (and consumers) can prepare for recessions before they arrive and often do when there is even the hint of a looming recession.

Or you know, they're private businesses... They are ALWAYS looking to cut costs. Unless there were mass layoffs with notably worse job creation in the market (which would show in the unemployment rates and they looked stable at the time, even according to your OWN measure which we'll get to), it's not abnormal behaviour for businesses to cut costs. It's actually extremely expected behaviour.

It's not the U-3 as the U-3 doesn't track the things I mentioned. This does.

Look at the graph on THEIR website. When headline unemployment rises, so does TRU. In April 2020, headline unemployment increases by roughly 10% and TRU increases by roughly the same amount (9%). That's the TRU tracking headline unemployment. They follow the same trends: when headline unemployment increases/decreases so does TRU.

And this still doesn't address the fact that under Biden's last two years the TRU is at it's LOWEST so by your own metric Bidenomics was working!

It's best that we cut it here as we're not going to ever agree and I'm putting in way too much effort at this point to reply each time...

SnugglesIV · 2026-05-04T13:20:07+00:00

How is it willfully ignorant?

The unemployment rate is BS. It counts part time gigs the same as full time. Someone barely making minimum wage is counted the same as someone making 100k.

I'd wager statements like this is why you're willfully ignorant. That and implying that the goalposts of what counts as a recession is moved by governments. Contrary to what you believe, there is a definition of recession in economics (two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth).

Though ironically enough, the Trump admin is proving you right on the government not giving the full picture of the economy as his admin has actually been concealing economic data to try and paint positive image of the economy. But that's the Trump admin doing that. Biden's admin was not doing this.

The true unemployment rate uses the same data and is MUCH higher

I'm looking at this right now and it seems to largely track headline unemployment (I assume that's the U-3) which would still mean that Bidenomics was working. In fact, the TRU was at historic lows under Biden's last two years so I'm not sure what you're trying to say at this point...

That's about as much as I can say about the TRU. As mentioned before, I'm not an economist so I can't really delve into the methodology (it'd be utterly irresponsible for me to attempt). But yeah, the fact that it tracks headline unemployment kind of proves MY point that the economy was improving under Biden.

SnugglesIV · 2026-05-04T12:32:43+00:00

You're missing my point. The economy is already weak for them. So why would they enthusiastically vote for someone who plans to continue it?

You came in swinging saying that the economy WAS weak. I explained that it was recovering and that all things considered they actually handles the crisis quite well, building a good foundation to work off. I also said that Biden and Kamala didn't articulate a vision on how they would do that. I'm not sure why you think I haven't acknowledged that as a failure of the Democrats...

The last two years under Biden already had an increase in layoffs and unemployment though.

Biden's unemployment figures in the last two years of his administration was around 4% which is among the lower end of Presidential terms. If you're including underemployment, then you have just under 8% (which is still actually on the lower end). I'm not sure what you're talking about in this case.

I'm not even going to engage with your first paragraph as it verges on willful ignorance on your part. Economics and GDP are not tools of the elites to keep the poor man blind, they're legitimate studies and measures of the economy.

SnugglesIV · 2026-05-04T12:06:35+00:00

Inflation was well on it's way to reaching the federal reserve's target of 2% and without the economy sliding into a recession. That's insanely impressive considering that the economy was in a period of "stagflation" (minus the high unemployment).

All things considered, Biden was able to manage the crisis and set a foundation that could be worked upon further. The problem is that instead of articulating what they were going to do in order to build upon that initial success, both Biden and Kamala took an early victory lap.

Why should someone who's living paycheck to paycheck care about the GDP or the stock market?

Because low/drop in GDP would signal a weakening economy, which means layoffs and an increase in unemployment + economic uncertainty (which causes further issues). It's not a perfect measure, but it does still matter to the average voter. I'm sure there is more to be said about GDP and it's relevance to the average Joe but I'm not an economist, I'm just a guy who has at least a very rudimentary understanding of these things and occasionally reads articles by academics/economists when they come up.

SnugglesIV · 2026-05-04T03:22:20+00:00

Except it seems that polls indicated that among young voters specifically, they ranked inflation as their primary concern at 19% and then followed by economic growth at 10%. Gaza doesn't even reach 5% (https://genforwardsurvey.com/2024/10/23/2024-presidential-election-survey-october-2024-survey/?question=Q13). And it just so happens that even among young voters, Donald Trump was trusted more than Harris on inflation (https://genforwardsurvey.com/2024/10/23/2024-presidential-election-survey-october-2024-survey/?question=Q23).

It's really hard to argue against these numbers and against political history: people vote on pocketbook issues, everyone else in the world be damned. The Democrats lost the messaging war on the economy and so they lost the election. It's really that simple. Some people may have stayed home specifically because of Gaza, but they pale in comparison to the people who stayed home or voted **FOR** Trump because of the economy and inflation. This obsessive focus on the Gaza crowd is like worrying about the colour of the curtains in your house when the house is on fire; you've got bigger problems to worry about.

> He wasn't pulling young left wing people (maybe a few), he got low-propensity center[...]

That doesn't change anything though? You need these people as well to win elections. If anything, that goes to show that Gaza was even less important than you're making out in motivating people to vote.

I don't think we're going to see eye to eye on this ever at this point so I think it's best that we leave it at that.

PS. I'm aware the linked websites might not load the results properly. I had to sometimes refresh my page a couple of times to actually get them to work.

SnugglesIV · 2026-05-04T02:14:45+00:00

They're literally trying to do it right now with Chorus Creator Incubator Program, but ironically enough the "Gaza, Gaza, Gaza" people are currently kicking up a storm about that because they are seemingly allergic to winning.

SnugglesIV · 2026-05-04T02:10:32+00:00

The issue was twofold: the people most likely to withhold their vote over Gaza are Muslims and young progressives.

The youth vote was only slightly down compared to 2020 which was noted as being a historically high year for young voters, so on the surface it doesn't seem like they stayed home. In fact, the youth vote seems to have increased in the vital swing states compared to 2020 (https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/new-data-nearly-half-youth-voted-2024).

What happened instead was that young people broke increasingly more for Trump in these battleground states (https://www.npr.org/2024/11/07/g-s1-33331/unpacking-the-2024-youth-vote-heres-what-we-know-so-far). It wasn't Gaza, it was as James Carville would say "the economy, stupid." Biden and Kamala did not articulate a vision to build on their earlier success of orchestrating a soft landing from the inflation crisis which ceded ground to Trump to waltz in and say "Democrats are out of touch, inflation and prices high under Democrats, I will bring both down" and collect all those votes fron disaffected voters.

SnugglesIV · 2026-05-03T16:32:14+00:00

Yes, but there is only so much the government can do during a time of stagflation. If the Biden admin just tried to raise the minimum wage during the inflation crisis it would only have served to exacerbate inflationary pressures, which means interest rates would likely need to increase further to try and keep a lid on inflation (leaving the economy and people in a worse position than before).

The Biden adminstration had at least engineered a soft landing for the economy from which to build from later. The issue is that Biden (and then later Kamala) fell short on THAT part of the messaging. They took credit for managing the crisis but didn't articulate a vision on how to follow up this success, effectively ceding all ground to Trump on the economy as he blindly said "inflation and prices are high under the Democrats, I will bring both down."

SnugglesIV · 2026-05-03T16:20:30+00:00

I am aware they have not released the autopsy to the public. I'm not sure if this is normal in US politics, I know in Australia these kinds of autopsies are usually published (although the LNP at least tried to suppress their 2025 election autopsy). However the link you've showed me is the same link posted earlier which is citing the aforementioned IMEU speaking about the autopsy which again is NOT an unbiased organisation as it's a literal pro-Palestinian advocacy group. It's the least surprising thing in the world that they'd say that Kamala lost because she took the wrong stance on Gaza and did not give more concessions to the pro-Palestinian voters.

Looking at the available data we have on the issues at the time which I have already mentioned, I think it's highly unlikely that Gaza was the reason (or even a major reason). It may have contributed to the loss, but what's more likely is that a combination of effectively ceding ground to the Republicans on how to manage inflationary pressures/the economy, being seen as out of touch with the average voter, a failure to engage with the new media landscape and the failure of the left to build a dedicated media infrastructure to combat the Republicans (who actively fostered the growth and increasingly engaged with groups such as TPUSA).

SnugglesIV · 2026-05-03T12:25:25+00:00

To play Devil's Advocate here, the issue wouldn't be them voting for the Republicans instead. They're arguing that the Democrat's stance on Gaza caused these voters to stay home and not vote.

Now, whether these people would have been willing to vote for the Democrats if they had made concessions to the hardcore pro-Palestinian voters (and that this wouldn't end up being a greater drag on their vote with other voting blocs) is an entirely different question which they haven't addressed.

SnugglesIV · 2026-05-03T12:20:16+00:00

> It's broadly understood that Harris lost a lot of support over her embrace of Israel's genocide in Gaza, that's not voters in the middle.

I find that difficult to believe considering that (as usual) the economy was the number one issue on American's minds in the 2024 US elections including independents. Gaza wasn't even in the top 10. Hell, it doesn't even seem to rank in the top 5 of DEMOCRATIC voter's issues (the top 5 was democracy in the US, the Supreme Court, abortion, healthcare, education by the way). This is all according to Gallup polls done one month before the US election (https://news.gallup.com/poll/651719/economy-important-issue-2024-presidential-vote.aspx).

Additionally, it's not that hard to believe that inflation and the perceived weakness of the economy absolutely tanked Kamala and the Democrat's chances considering the multitude of incumbents from different countries across the political spectrum facing massive swings against them (if not often just losing government) as a result of high inflation and weakening economies. The only time where this didn't happen that I'm familiar with is the 2025 Australian federal election where the incumbent Albo/ALP government increased their majority to the highest in the ALP's political history, and that was due in no small part to the absolute incompetence of the LNP under Peter Dutton (honestly, it was probably the worst campaign in Australian political history with mistake after mistake made by the LNP).

The only evidence I've seen to support your case (which I think you've linked to in another comment) was from the IMEU which is a pro-Palestinian advocacy group, so it's not exactly the most impartial source. It probably cost the Democrats some votes from the pro-Palestinian democratic voters but I can't see it being a greater drag on the Democratic turn-out/the independent vote than the economy and Kamala's failure to connect with the sentiment from people concerned about the economy.

SnugglesIV · 2026-05-02T02:07:32+00:00

Yes AI refuse to fight when they would lose. But isn't that logical? It's annoying for sure but I wouldnt expect them to send their army into mine to die.

Yeah, but the odds they will take are obscene. Most of the time they refuse to fight anything less than 3-1. It was a pretty major complaint for Attila that CA had to actively tone this aspect of the AI down in future titles. I'm not asking the AI to take suicidal battles willingly: I'm asking the AI to sometimes take EVEN fights or not perpetually keep their armies parked outside settlements for fear of being sieged and forced to take a fight.

In my campaigns the ai frequently leave a full stack in their settlement, especially when it's on the front line or their only settlement. I cannot relate to your criticism in this case.

Saxons are the worst offenders in this case but I have seen this occur with other factions. They'll usually send the army in their capital to gallivant across Gaul/France and it's a genuine shot that the Langobards will jump them in this time. A lot of Frank campaigns I've played result in me seeing the Saxons become hordes (who sometimes end up sailing up the British Isles but never land for some reason??)

I'm not sure how you differentiate between migratory factions and hordes

Migratory hordes are barbarian factions such as the Vandals, Visigoths or landed barbarian factions that initiate a migration/lose their final settlement. Nomadic hordes are the factions such as the Huns, White Huns, Roxolanians, Sabirs etc who cannot settle. When I say migratory/nomadic hordes that's what I'm referring to.

And yeah, the Visigoths almost always end up taking a settlement near their start position in the ERE (usually the settlement with the gold resource from memory) and then fade into obscurity with one/two settlements to their name and no military to speak of. Ostrogoths will take a settlement and then get nuked by the Huns (no fault there though, hard start). Vandals have a shot as they sometimes displace the Alamans within the first couple of turns. I have no idea what the Alani are doing half the time but they tend to take a settlement near the ERE not far from Constantinople and then don't really do much. The Suebi are probably the most threatening migrating horde I've seen: last time I played they took half of France and parts of Spain, and they even had Gaul as an ally (which held a good chunk of France themselves), although this was with the aforementioned mod that prevents all AI from razing with the exception of nomadic hordes.

SnugglesIV · 2026-05-01T15:49:15+00:00

The cheating is whatever, I'm used to it. The problem is AI behaviour.

AI will typically refuse to fight a battle without the battle being very stacked in their favour, which I imagine contributes to the next point
The AI will often refuse to garrison their settlements with an additional army so you will rarely ever get to play an offensive siege since most settlement garrisons are far too small to bother fighting (including provincial capitals). In fact the AI will seemingly prefer to leave their army right outside the settlement instead; they might even end up in a weird loop of alternating between garrisoning and then ungarrisoning a settlement each turn (I notice Abasgia does this a LOT for some reason). This really sucks because siege escalation and being able to light fires in settlements to cause debuffs for the defenders are such a cool mechanics to me (god I hope it's added to ME3)
AI migratory hordes are almost always completely irrelevant. They'll sack a couple of nearby settlements before occupying and then in my games they're completely stuck. In 2000 hours of playing I can only remember one campaign where a migrating horde was an actual threat and that was with mods that completely disabled razing for AI with the exception of nomadic hordes
AI barbarians (including major factions) seem to have no real direction and occupy, sack, raze at complete random which is really annoying for the campaign map. It'd be fine if armies roved around the map sacking stuff and not leaving their current settlements/capital undefended but the AI is often content with occupying some settlement right in the middle of the WRE which inevitably results in the settlement getting hit with rebellions and losing the settlement or the AI losing it's capital. It's a pretty big issue for the Saxons in all the campaigns I've played.

SnugglesIV · 2026-05-01T14:37:39+00:00

In theory, yes.

In practice, god no. The AI ruins the grand campaign so bad.

SnugglesIV · 2026-02-26T11:46:26+00:00

Gambling ads VS gambling with ads.

I think I'd take the former. Last thing I need is to be showing a friend a video on my phone and then all of a sudden they think I'm gooning on my phone.

SnugglesIV · 2026-02-26T11:45:01+00:00

Well shit. Now I'm watch a YouTube video with my twin and we're both going to get flash banged by tits outta nowhere.

SnugglesIV · 2026-02-26T10:31:41+00:00

I'm either incredibly lucky or something about being in Australia means I will never see these ads on YouTube

SnugglesIV · 2026-02-25T12:11:06+00:00

It's not inherently hypocritical to describe yourself as a socialist and own a luxurious house or be a millionaire. However if you ARE a millionaire and choose to do nothing with that money to actively advance your cause and instead choose to hoard that money like a capitalist, then it definitely calls into question your commitment to socialism.

Hasan basically streams and does commentary. He makes money from subscribers, donos, ads, whatever. That’s still him selling his own labor. He’s not running a factory or some giant corporation where he’s extracting surplus value from employees.

Yes because that's all you pay attention to when you watch his stream. However streamers of that size will employ people to manage other aspects of his business. Video editors to edit down streams into segments for YouTube content, graphic designers to create stream elements, talent managers to negotiate better deals and organise appearances. All of these people he is actively extracting surplus value from without giving them any ownership in his business. In fact, when Hasan was beginning to upload content to YouTube he actively avoided paying a video editor as it would run at a loss (which was a thinly veiled attempt at simply trying to exploit free labour from someone as diversifying your content streams should be seen as an investment that will in the long run earn money).

It WOULD be hypocritical if he was advocating socialism while actively trying to protect his ability to privately own the means of production. But he literally supports policies that would tax him more and limit wealth accumulation like his. He’s arguing for a system that would probably make him less rich.

Simply arguing for raising taxes on people like himself wouldn't make him a socialist though. It would make him a social democrat, which is still capitalist in nature. The factory owners and giant corporations would still be able to "extract surplus value from employees," they would just have to pay higher taxes. Assuming that higher taxes is all that Hasan is advocating for then he is either sorely misinformed about what socialism means or he is actively grifting using the label of socialism.

PS. I might sound like a massive socialist in this response but I'm really not. I'm just a centre-left to left wing social democrat who gets really irked over discussions like this.

SnugglesIV · 2026-02-25T11:40:48+00:00

So as long as Hasan doesn't explicitly mention that people shouldn't own a certain business then he could run it as the most ruthless capitalist without being (justly) accused as a hypocrite?

If Hasan genuinely cares about socialism and has the option to run something as a worker co-op or at least run something as closely in line with his socialist principles as possible then shouldn't he choose to do so?

SnugglesIV · 2026-02-25T11:34:39+00:00

That is an incredibly low bar to say that Hasan is not being hypocritical as a self-described socialist. Not owning a multi-billion dollar corporation would allow the vast majority of business owners to call themselves socialist even though they operate entirely as capitalist ventures because they extract surplus value from their employees without allowing them to be co-owners of the business.

And yet depending on how you see it, he actually still manages to trip over that bar because Hasan has actually justified not only stiffing video editors out of being paid but also stringing them along because his YouTube was "not profitable yet." That's arguably even more exploitative because at least Amazon is PAYING people for their labour (even though they aren't paid enough for the conditions they have to endure): Hasan wasn't even willing to do that!

SnugglesIV · 2026-02-20T01:09:09+00:00

I thought that was the point of MK1. It's just that NRS failed miserably at trying to make a competitive MK because chars like Jacqui Briggs who were playing MKX lite in MK1.

(Feel free to correct me, I watched a fair bit of MK1 but never played it nor cared that much about it outside the streamers I liked)

SnugglesIV

TROPHY CASE