Several surveys now have pegged the typical person crossing the Rubicon to One Nation as a white outer-suburban male, in his 50s.

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He might possess a trade qualification and probably listens to talk-back radio during long commutes.

He may have voted Labor in the past, perhaps even habitually, but the bulk of these potential new converts have come from a longer-term alignment with the Liberal Party.

This latter cohort is perverse given that the Liberal Party is not in power. Ordinarily a protest vote is aimed at the government of the day. Opposition supporters usually feel even more inclined to stick with their standard choice as the most plausible means of unseating a government they despise.

Could this shift from inside-right to outside-right provide the clue to an even deeper fracture? Hold that thought.

Of course, with One Nation now edging consistently towards the 30 per cent range, it is more than just 55-year-old blokes vectoring to the populist fringe - there are also younger voters, women, even first and second-generation migrants.

We know this because some are bobbing up as One Nation candidates.

What virtually all have in common is a nagging sense that the country is being run for someone else.

These citizens feel left-behind - that they are being written out of an elitist Australian narrative which seems preoccupied with everything in the world, bar their declining material circumstances.

Nostalgically-minded, they struggle with flat wages, runaway prices, clogged roads and a general sense of economic and cultural precariousness.

A discourse of abstracts - the economy, the climate and kaleidoscopic identity - further their alienation. Abandoning the orthodoxy simply seems rational.

Recent elections (South........

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