The recent Liberal party room vote to overturn support for net zero suggests the Coalition is likely heading towards yet another bout of intense navel-gazing over who should be leader, and which faction should be in charge.

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Although this topic is of intense interest to the media - as shown by the extensive coverage given to it - it seems it is of far less interest to the public, as shown by the Coalition's historically low poll numbers.

Some have suggested that the Coalition could or should split, others have gone even further and claimed various factions should go it alone.

Of course, the growing divide between moderates and conservatives in Australia mirrors a global trend. In the UK, it has manifested as the rise of Reform, in the US, it's Trump and MAGA.

You can even see the same rhetoric and issues being copy-pasted onto Australian politics, despite the obvious differences in our circumstances.

For example, Australia does not have anything like the immigration issues plaguing the US and UK - in fact some of the commentators in those countries are suggesting adopting our immigration system might be the cure for their problems.

The issues front and centre for these movements are overwhelmingly cultural; and even where the issues touch on areas of economics (like immigration), they are viewed through a cultural lens.

It is in this context that both movements decisively reject liberalism, in whatever form. Relevantly, these nominally-conservative movements have no time for the small government, free market, classical liberalism foundation that was once an article of faith in US and UK conservative politics during the Reagan and Thatcher revolutions of the '80s.

MAGA openly prefers "post-liberal" thinking and doesn't have any time for limited government: in their worldview, power is to be used to crush your enemies internal and external, foreign and........

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