Just in case you didn’t notice the accelerating rate of which Australia is galloping towards full blown fascism, today’s outrageous statement from a government minister should be ringing alarm bells. There is no chance that this tone of debate is anything but coldly calculated.

If you ever want to confirm the current bovine nature of debate in this country, look no further than television news Facebook pages. Mind boggling comments like “Good. They need help. “Murder ” is too kind a word. These people are being brutalized by animals” are dime a dozen. There is a large class of people who have either been conditioned, or willingly, eat this shit up without a moment’s thought.

Years of propaganda about immigration, years of propaganda about asylum seekers. Years of propaganda about the ABC, and years of propaganda on welfare seekers. All these years of propaganda normalizing the insane levels of racism. At this point, I can hardly tell whether the media flame fanning is just to provide a smorgasbord of options for the casual racist to pick from. Today, it’s Sudanese, tomorrow it’s Black Africans, and of course Muslims, no matter what time of day. White supremacy fueled by market forces!

Of course, we all know this country has been racist since its theft.

When people of influence speak like Peter Dutton did today, the end result is invariably murder. Some mentally ill Nazi thug will be radicalized by these ideas and will murder someone while screaming “Reclaim Australia!”. When it happens, the nation will lament the tragedy without any introspection into what motivated the perpetrator. Like we always do when it comes to right-wing terrorism.

This is not a healthy country, this is not a healthy debate. And I fear it’s too late to do anything about it. The art of propaganda really has been mastered.