The past few months have seen global and local news machines working overtime to keep up with events globally, and here at home. But for everything that happens, there’s barely a few hours to process before someone has come up with a timely one-liner to explain the situation - a pattern we can probably get used to.

But, maybe all these cleverly constructed and endlessly recited zingers really achieve is to help us distance ourselves, and our lives, from the uncomfortable bits. One-liners condense things down to the delightfully digestible; doled-out prescribed doses of social discomfort - just enough to prick the ears and motivate, but not so much that we can’t bear to hear about it over dinner. 

Sometimes, the one-liners extend to a part of our lives that is more sinister. In the past few months, we have seen zingy words like “patriot” and neatly-reduced, placard-sized slurs used by a bunch of folk who think their idea of Australia is the one we should have. 

We’ve seen Reclaim Australia men draped to near-total obscurity in the Australian flag, bemoaning the idea that someone of a different culture would cover themselves in their clothes. 

But the problem with following a cause that fits on a placard is they are dangerously flimsy. They become the impossible bandwagon: critically failing at the foundations, but gaining strength the more people pile on top.

The Reclaim Australia mob roar that a bunch of arriving by boat and  looking for a better life on an island at the bottom of the world is completely unacceptable. 

Their narrative seems familiar, but maybe the words “Boat-people descendents”, or “All boat people are bad, except the ones that were our great-grandparents” will not fit on a placard.

The neatly organised slurs do not require us to critically think, and it won’t be until we take a long, hard, honest look at what we’re reading that we can see just how far we’ve come.