Yesterday I got my Pfizer booster shot, exactly six months to the day since my second AZ shot. Within a few months a huge majority of the population will be triple vaccinated, though a small but vocal rump will not.

I met a selection of these hold-outs on a train to the city last weekend. Piling into my carriage, mask-less, noisy and entitled, they were truly unpleasant travel companions until Strathfield, when suddenly, they all alighted. What gives, I wondered?

Later that night on the news my question was answered. They were attending a 'freedom march'. The footage had them assembled, looking somewhat non-plussed and leaderless, flags and placards drooping like afterthoughts. They were entirely white.

Something is afoot amongst a segment of the white urban populations of Western democracies. It is not rational, opposed to expertise and science and beholden to conspiracy. Perhaps the end of the post-war boom, the rise of economic rationalism and the global economy has proved too much. Many of the what were once traditional jobs have dried up or gone overseas, housing seems increasingly unaffordable and political leaders often outspend their capital, resorting to anodyne media-focussed statements.

That doesn't mean, however, that we should lose sight of what's real, nor distort long-held concepts and ideas. I doubt that anyone amongst that crowd in Strathfield has made any serious study of Western liberalism, nor the conditions under which freedoms and rights emerged. If they had, they would put their signs down, slap on a mask and get on with their lives in this lucky country. 

It is right to be vigilant. It is doubly right to hold our political representatives to account. But that requires diligence on our parts too - campaigning and advocating for real issues - not make-believe notions from some dark hole on the internet.