MAGA Marches in Australia fizzle - but the threat remains.
Let’s talk about “Let’s Talk About the March for Australia” — friendlyjordies’ fast, funny, and surprisingly nuanced debrief of Australia’s recent anti‑immigration rallies. The video is classic Jordan Shanks: relentless jokes, self-aware tangents, and then, when you least expect it, a sober argument about migration policy, economics, and how online culture wars import American frames into Australian debates.
What the rallies looked like from the ground (and why that matters)
Scale and confusion
Shanks starts by ribbing the rallies for being both “some of the biggest protests we’ve ever seen” and also… deeply confused. He riffs on conflicting crowd numbers, with some capitals seeing around the 8–15k range while regional turnouts were comically small. The broader point: despite the noise, cohesion was thin; even in Melbourne, parts of the crowd allegedly marched in opposite directions at one point. It felt more like a vibe than a platform.
The flags and the vibe
Viewers are reminded of the red ensigns and Eureka flags everywhere, plus a “no foreign flags” posture that says a lot about the mood. This iconography isn’t new in Australia’s protest scene, but the way it has been reinterpreted tells you the audience these rallies were courting and the enemies they were defining.
A day of contradictions
He jokes about anti‑immigration marchers grabbing lunch at Chinese restaurants, and notes the crowd’s lack of diversity — a visual that flatly contradicts the claim that “this isn’t about race.” The satire is pointed but in service of a bigger observation: the messaging was muddled and often imported from overseas culture wars. 
Who showed up alongside the “mainstream” protesters
The video’s turn to footage of openly neo‑Nazi groups — and the clashes that followed — is the hinge of his critique. Shanks shows how a contingent of black‑clad, skinhead‑coded formations injected intensity and provocation into otherwise rambling marches. In Melbourne, the National Socialist Network (NSN) led parts of the march and its leader, Thomas Sewell, addressed the crowd — a hard fact that blows past any “just patriots” PR.
Crikey’s on‑the‑ground photo report corroborates that NSN led, Sewell spoke, and MAGA/Trump merch was common at the rally — visual shorthand for a globalised far‑right style. https://www.crikey.com.au/2025/09/01/march-for-australia-neo-nazi-anti-immigration-pictures/
What friendlyjordies argues about immigration policy (beyond the memes)
Shanks’ shtick gives way to a pragmatic case:
There’s a kernel of truth
Migration has been high and it’s stressing housing, schools, transport and health. This is the part of the protest instinct he treats seriously.
But numbers are weaponised
He lampoons talkback and TikTok math that misreads or cherry‑picks Australian Bureau of Statistics figures (e.g., conflating temporary movements with permanent migration). He cites a typical media goof — turning “net permanent and long‑term movements” into “this many permanent arrivals” — to show how the panic gets cooked.
Migration is a tool, not a faith
His frame isn’t “open or shut” borders. It’s “calibrate the tap.” Nations grow either by upskilling existing workers or by importing skills/consumers. Australia leaned too hard on population growth for cheap GDP sugar‑hits (he pins this especially on the Howard era), then under‑invested in TAFE and infrastructure. The answer isn’t a five‑year ban (cue recession), but tighter settings, targeted skills, and a rebuild of training capacity.
Free TAFE matters
He repeatedly praises the recent expansion of free vocational education as the best long‑term nation‑building move — the kind that allows migration to be dialed back without stalling the economy or construction pipeline.
Why the crowd’s broad “halt migration” demand misses the policy reality
The video walks through the obvious but often ignored trade‑offs:
If you slam the tap shut, you’ll quickly feel it in growth, construction capacity, aged care staffing, and more. Japan, he notes, is the cautionary tale: even the most migration‑resistant advanced economy is quietly letting more workers in.
If you leave the tap wide open, you exacerbate a housing and infrastructure crunch that state systems can’t absorb overnight.
Sensible policy lives in the boring middle
Tighten categories toward genuine skills shortages; build training capacity at home; sequence intake with new housing/schools/transport; and expect migration to rise and fall with conditions. He’s explicit that “zero migration” is unserious — and that performative absolutes are a culture‑war crutch.
Imported narratives: when Australia borrows America’s culture war
One of Shanks’ sharper points is that the language and frames shouted at these rallies don’t feel particularly Australian. The talking points (crime panic, “replacement,” “no foreign flags,” performative patriot merch) track with American right‑wing online narratives — a content pipeline that feeds rallies with ready‑made slogans and enemies.
That impression isn’t just a comedian’s vibe check. ABC’s verification work before the marches found that the March for Australia website originally listed “remigration now” — a far‑right, white‑nationalist idea — before quietly deleting it; organizers and promoters also pushed “great replacement” content online. That isn’t everyday Australian policy skepticism — it’s the lexicon of the global far right. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-28/who-is-behind-march-for-australia-anti-immigration-rallies/105657548
And the MAGA linkage isn’t only aesthetic
The Conversation’s analysis (by far‑right communication researchers) shows how the rallies were explicitly amplified by a roster of US/UK culture‑war influencers — Alex Jones, Jack Posobiec, and Tommy Robinson — and even Elon Musk, who boosted wildly inflated crowd numbers and has lately dabbled in “remigration” rhetoric himself. This is the same online network that mainstreamed MAGA slogans and aesthetics; in Australia it simply gets localised as “Make Australia Grouse Again,” with the same memetic playbook (ironic edge, grievance as identity, and algorithm‑baiting outrage). https://www.nationaltribune.com.au/how-australia-s-anti-immigration-rallies-were-amplified-online-by-the-global-far-right/
What the video says about the counter‑protests and street theater
Shanks rolls footage of scuffles between NSN and anti‑fascist counter‑protesters, plus the now‑routine presence of right‑wing streamers who sometimes get turned on by the very groups they cover. It’s chaotic and performative — a spectacle calibrated for clout on X, Telegram and Rumble. The through‑line: you don’t need huge numbers to flood feeds; you need distinctive imagery (masks, banners, brawls) and a distribution network ready to launder it into narrative. Crikey’s photo essay documents both the NSN‑fronted march and later violence, including an attack on Camp Sovereignty, a First Nations site — a jarring coda that punctures the “patriots just asking questions” storyline. https://www.crikey.com.au/2025/09/01/march-for-australia-neo-nazi-anti-immigration-pictures/
So what’s friendlyjordies’ bottom line?
On the protesters
Most attendees probably came with a simple gripe — “migration’s too high.” But that broad frustration was flanked and fronted by actors with explicit white‑nationalist goals, and many in the crowd didn’t seem bothered by marching beside them. * On the media numbers game: Be wary of scary aggregates that count students, tourists, and temporary movements as permanent migrants. Panic travels faster than context.
On policy
Turn the dials, don’t smash the panel. Pair tighter migration settings with a serious rebuild of training and infrastructure. That’s how you ease housing and school pressure without tanking the economy.
On culture war imports
The protest’s slogans, symbols, and online amplification are steeped in a MAGA‑style information ecosystem. That’s not speculation — it’s visible in the merch on the day and in the amplification pipeline that pushed the rallies into international feeds. (crikey.com.au, nationaltribune.com.au)
On Australia’s “feel”
Underneath the theatre, Shanks still finds something disarmingly Australian — a shambolic, half‑hearted pageant that can’t quite sell the doom it’s aiming for. The worry is that the organized extremists showed up ready to professionalize it.
How this ties directly to MAGA
If you’re wondering whether it’s fair to link March for Australia to MAGA, there are two clear bridges:
Symbols and presence on the day
Photographers documented Trump/MAGA merch worn by attendees — not just as a one‑off novelty, but as a “common sight.” When the same rally is led in Melbourne by the NSN and features MAGA iconography in the crowd, you’re looking at the overlap, not an accident. https://www.crikey.com.au/2025/09/01/march-for-australia-neo-nazi-anti-immigration-pictures/
The amplification and ideology pipeline
Researchers show the rallies were boosted by marquee MAGA‑sphere accounts (Jones, Posobiec) and fellow‑traveller celebrities on X, with inflated numbers and “take back the country” rhetoric. The same article tracks the migration of memes and slogans across borders, including the Australianised “Make Australia Grouse Again.” That’s the MAGA template: transnational grievance, memetic marketing, and a flattering story about national decline only you can reverse. https://www.nationaltribune.com.au/how-australia-s-anti-immigration-rallies-were-amplified-online-by-the-global-far-right/
ABC’s verification identifies “remigration” and “great replacement” as part of the organizers’ discourse — both central to the global far right that incubated MAGA’s harder edges. Even where organizers tried to scrub the language, the receipts were there. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-28/who-is-behind-march-for-australia-anti-immigration-rallies/105657548
A note on why the middle still matters
The friendliest part of friendlyjordies’ piece is also the most grown‑up: migration is a lever. Australia needs to decide, with fewer memes and more math, how to calibrate it alongside training, housing, schools and roads. You can be frustrated with today’s pressures and still reject a politics that launders white‑nationalist demands through “patriotic” branding.
The fact that a chunk of the crowd didn’t mind walking behind neo‑Nazis is exactly why the rest of us should insist on a policy debate that’s boring, detailed, and empirically tethered — and deny extremists their optics. If you watch the video for the jokes, stay for that pitch. It’s not “be nice.” It’s “be serious.”
That’s the story friendlyjordies is telling underneath the gags: a country with real capacity constraints, a policy problem that needs calibration not fury, and a protest brand that — by choice or by drift — found itself marching to a MAGA‑adjacent drum.
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friendlyjordies didn't make an 'anti-MAGA' video, but in taking down these, quite clearly MAGA wannabes, he's rolling out the best anti-MAGA arguments you can make.
MAGA do their best (worst) when they're able to fight on culture war alone and make out they're 'fighting back'. They lose (and lose hard, see: Last federal election in Australia) when they're asked to justify their wild claims and explain their bat**** crazy policies.
Dutton ushered in a landslide defeat of historic proportions for the MAGA friendly Coalition and that was due to him constantly being asked to explain his MAGA thought bubbles and not being allowed to simply fight a culture war on sound bites.
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We have two tiers and they're based on how many views this video gets.
'Let's Talk About the March for Australia' video hits 500K views
- 50K $AUSPOL prizes for the first 10 correct entries
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'Let's Talk About the March for Australia' video hits 1M views
- 10 x 100K $AUSPOL prizes for the first 10 correct entries
- Post a comment in the comments section of the video including the text '$AUSPOL, sFR8udcPHTyhAZEUopNJ22kVK1AVSAMVXHDCeP6ZGFM' and your Bulb username, and post a link to the comment in the comments on this post.
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