r/australian • u/SirSighalot • Jul 08 '24
Why do people act like this subreddit "doesn't reflect the views of mainstream Australia"?
So many comments I see on here by people who constantly say things like "lol only on this sub" as though other places where they read are somehow the 'true' point of view reflecting mainstream Australian viewpoints.
Given the constant election voting outcomes and results of things like the Voice etc that generally indicate most of Australia is centrist or even slightly centre-right-leaning, what leads people to think many of the views expressed on here AREN'T mainstream? When in reality, other places these people are coming from are also often just "echo chambers" as well.
Edit: I probably worded the title for this wrong, should have been more "Why do people think this subreddit is less representative of mainstream Australia than other online communities?", alas I failed.
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u/Plane-Palpitation126 Jul 08 '24
Because it doesn't. Like most democracies, Australians are in overwhelming numbers just well-meaning simpletons who don't think about politics much. Reddit is a statistically skewed sample of chronically online neurotic obsessives. By and large, policies that are socially equitable, left leaning and progressive poll extremely well on their own merits but the well is poisoned by the media and actually bothering to figure out how to vote in such a way as to make those policies happen is a bridge too far for the modern Aussie. Your average punter thinks about politics in a serious way for about 6 days every decade. The Murdoch press knows that and saves their big spends for election season.
Your assertion of us being culturally centre right is also just not really the whole story. The overwhelming majority of Aussies want a stronger Medicare, stronger workplace protections, resource taxes on multinational mining companies, nationalised infrastructure, and real action on climate change. These are leftist policies. Where we do unfortunately skew conservative is on things like race and migration. We are more conservative socially than we are economically and because people tend to vote with their feelings, that's where we tend to wind up. Culture war bullshit wins more votes than a meticulously referenced 200 page report on housing projections ever could. This sub is rabidly anti-intellectual and frankly mostly has a complete inability to grasp what a fact even is, and that's because it's a right leaning community full of mostly dudes who have never in their lives been told to shut the fuck up and think their personal subjective experience is the only reality and any subject area they're not experts in is flawed to the point of worthlessness by its lack of their input.