"Nigel might have an earlier date, but I think it's unprecedented from my memory. So it is a reminder to everybody that the public can move very rapidly on some issues and therefore what looks settled may not be"
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Politics loves to cosplay as geology: slow, layered, basically permanent. Bolger punctures that comforting fantasy with a small, almost conversational warning that lands like a siren. The key move is his hedging. "Might have" and "from my memory" sound modest, even folksy, but they function as rhetorical insulation. He’s not issuing a prophecy; he’s testifying as a veteran. The authority comes not from certainty but from lived exposure to shocks.
His real target is complacency. By framing the moment as "unprecedented", he signals a rupture in political time: the usual assumptions about voter loyalty, party dominance, or policy consensus are suddenly unreliable. "The public can move very rapidly" is less a compliment to democratic vitality than a reminder of volatility. Public opinion becomes weather, not bedrock, and leaders who treat yesterday’s majority as a permanent settlement are setting themselves up to be blindsided.
Bolger’s subtext is also a critique of elite storytelling. "What looks settled" points to the narratives politicians and institutions build to stabilize reality: mandates, inevitable reforms, "the national mood". He’s saying those stories are provisional, and the public reserves the right to tear them up without notice. Coming from a statesman, the line reads as counsel to successors: govern with humility, keep your ear to the ground, and don’t confuse institutional momentum with consent. It’s a warning about speed - and about the cost of ignoring it.
His real target is complacency. By framing the moment as "unprecedented", he signals a rupture in political time: the usual assumptions about voter loyalty, party dominance, or policy consensus are suddenly unreliable. "The public can move very rapidly" is less a compliment to democratic vitality than a reminder of volatility. Public opinion becomes weather, not bedrock, and leaders who treat yesterday’s majority as a permanent settlement are setting themselves up to be blindsided.
Bolger’s subtext is also a critique of elite storytelling. "What looks settled" points to the narratives politicians and institutions build to stabilize reality: mandates, inevitable reforms, "the national mood". He’s saying those stories are provisional, and the public reserves the right to tear them up without notice. Coming from a statesman, the line reads as counsel to successors: govern with humility, keep your ear to the ground, and don’t confuse institutional momentum with consent. It’s a warning about speed - and about the cost of ignoring it.
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