When rationality goes out the window

Things must be tough on the starboard side of politics when three conservative ministers, all law school graduates, move from dog-whistling their anxious rabble to spearheading it (Mike Seccombe, “The Coalition’s war on the law”, June 24-30). As such, their attacks on the Victorian judiciary, which were conspicuously lacking in detached and systematic reasoning, clearly resembled demagoguery rather than populism. In their defence, it could only be argued they are as manipulated by the frightened impulses of their amygdala as any lynch mob. Despite their traditional claim to a monopoly on calm and detached rationality, their hostility to inevitable climate change sacrifices and acceptance of the ruinous costs of their exported xenophobia suggests they are edging into a zone of mass psychopathology not seen for decades.