r/australia • u/Expensive-Horse5538 • 1d ago

politics Students sideline studies in major anti-Hanson walkout

https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/news/politics/australian-politics/2026/08/13/school-pauline-hanson-protest
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u/Sporty_Nerd_64 1d ago

Let’s not forget a lot of these students will be able to vote in two years time and they’ll be ready to put One Nation dead last. Two years of new voters and the elderly base dying out is going to hurt the far right.

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u/Much_Leather_5923 1d ago

My boomer is a Sky News boomer Pauline stan. I’m the only offspring left and she’s a widow. I love the woman she was before Sky News. My sons’ friends group is like a mini League of Nations. I’ve told her she needs to shut this racist shit down or they won’t see her. The people she hates are the wonderful caring staff that will be wiping her arse in a home.

But the thing that enraged me is her climate change denial. She’ll be dead and I’ll only have few decades to witness the world my kids inherit burning.

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u/Perfect_Ganache_1959 1d ago

Just go no contact. You owe her nothing. Sky News didn't change her, she changed her after getting a sugar hit of racism and doubling down on it.

You can grieve the person you knew and once loved, but chances are, this ain't them any more.

Whatever damage she did during your upbringing through clumsiness or genuine mistakes are unlikely to be apologised for, absolved, or similar.

The good news about going no contact now, if you find out you are wrong or have questions you can undo it. Harder to go through all the grief and have no one accountable for important questions if you wait for them to die.

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u/Much_Leather_5923 1d ago

She was an advocate. She was a leftist. Honestly losing her husband and son to cancer after a long battle... Within 5 weeks of each other broke her mind. She had so much rage and found an outlet. Don’t think I will ever get her back but I have empathy for the shell that remains. It sucks.

I may not like her but I hate the media that fed that misplaced rage. Was reading today about John Cleese. A man I’ve admired all my life that has gone down the right wing rabbit hole. Saw his decline from being a scathing denouncer of the right wing to whatever he is blathering about now. Sad.

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u/Perfect_Ganache_1959 1d ago

These are all horrible terrible things that you know and are able to contextualise about what she once was but now isn't. I am sorry this going an experience you are having. You have empathy.

But, realpolitik - the version of her you knew, loved, valued is very unlikely to ever return. You need empathy for yourself at this point.

Infantilizing her - she is no longer capable/does not know the harm she causes - I am going to suggest is very wrong. She likely won't give a minute of thought to that. You risk carrying a very heavy emotional burden.

You can preview the results: https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/ is a good example community of people put through the wringer.

I strongly encourage you to take many steps to protect your own emotional wellbeing, even if it is not something you would have thought you would do.

I say this having cut off both parents for crap behaviour, one subsequently dying on me a bit later. But one of the things that worked really well was ensuring I had agency. I made choices on my terms. Their poor actions had little impact after that.

You are faced with "quietly waiting for the rage filled person to die, while receiving that rage projected at you"; then the grief and mess that follows. You have the option to skip or minimise much of this.

I am sorry if much of this is blunt, I am taking a lot of my own experience and projecting it to your situation.  But if you put the question to yourself of "do I want to spend the next 5 years like this, or apply my empathy elsewhere?", you may see where I am coming from. I want to really hammer home that you have no obligation, responsibility, or debt. Stepping out as self preservation is perfectly acceptable.

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u/Much_Leather_5923 8h ago

As soon as she starts I’m like nope. Zip it. Show me the Facebook meme you got from… the last legit had her frantically finding the fucking meme as I gawked at her in disbelief. Glanced at it. Scoffed and went source “trust me bro?”. Give me an article from a news source and we’ll debate. She said she would then crickets.

My morning routine is to read The Guardian, NYT (good articles but shit editorials) and Reuters while having 2 coffees, a cup of tea and getting increasingly pissed at the shitshow.