It’s the vibe: Why Hanson’s candidate with a drug-taking past will win

One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce is right to draw a clear distinction between Alternative for Germany (AfD) and One Nation. The parties have completely different origins and very different compositions. The AfD began as an economically rationalist objection to the European monetary union. Its concern over migration developed later. One Nation was built first and foremost on cultural anxiety – the fear of being “swamped by Asians” – with the economic dimension more recent.

More importantly, some AfD representatives have past or present associations with fully fledged neo-Nazi groups rather than parroting online antisemitic conspiracies.

Yet despite their differences, both parties have found themselves in the political niche termed populism. Which is, I’m increasingly convinced, another euphemism applied to parties that have a deeply working-class sensibility by people who, rich or poor, are part of the educated cultural elite.

The sensibility is blowing up every convention of how politics is done. Not the political issues themselves, which can vary over time. (Though, unlike some other analysts , I believe One Nation voters when they say their No. 1 issue is immigration. When voters keep on telling you their main concern, it’s only manners to take them at their word.)

But the sensibility – the core of these parties’ emotional appeal – is game-changing. Where issues can be dealt with using conventional political methods, a new communications aesthetic requires politicians to change the way they act and speak. Over time, it might even change the candidates who are chosen in preselection.

This week, two men demonstrated what’s now cutting through. Warren Pickering, the One Nation candidate for the Victorian seat of Pakenham, held a press conference to confess to the sort of past that convention says is a political disqualifier. And the AfD’s Ronny Kumpf – also known as “Porno Ronny” – became a member of the state parliament of Saxony-Anhalt.

By now, Pickering’s story will be known to most readers. On Tuesday, he held a press conference triggered by his ex-partner’s revelations that he had taken drugs and been – in his own handwritten words – “sexually deviant” in the past. During the press conference, he admitted to the drugs and experimenting sexually during a relationship, as well as repeatedly losing his licence for drink-driving.

He was flanked by his adult daughter and stepson. The latter spoke of a turbulent childhood with a depressed and drug-addicted mother, but testified that Pickering had been a source of (relative) stability in difficult times.

One Nation party director James Ashby summed up with a killer dig at the ranks of lawyers and union organisers among the establishment parties, quipping that One Nation doesn’t grow its candidates in a Petri dish.

By the end of the press conference, it was clear that Pickering – One Nation’s leader in Victoria – will win Pakenham . The angry ex is a relatable trope.