On Becoming Accustomed to Your Own Face

Ozpocalypse 2022 Election Diaries #2

Firstly, to the few paying subscribers I have: apologies for the radio silence. Hopefully you are comfortable with your donations now assisting with a grassroots political campaign aiming to change the nature of our dismal Western political system as we know it. But I most certainly owe you and my other loyal readers an update.

I have spent the majority of the last 3 weeks on the road, driving from town to town to hold town hall meetings, hand out flyers and put up signs within my absolutely freaking massive electorate. Seriously: the Federal seat of O’Connor encompasses over 1 million square kilometres of rural Western Australia, which — as a comparison — is roughly one and a half times the size of Texas, the largest state in the US.

It has been one hell of a comfort-zone-shatterer for a self-confessed introvert with an often debilitating stutter who was very much hoping — up until a few months ago — to hide behind my (admittedly awesome) tin-foil-hatted wombat avatar. I’ve basically got this thing down to a fine art, after all: writing and YouTubing about conspiracies with just the right amount of self-awareness, humour and trolling to leave people unsure about just how serious I am.

That said, I have a few concerns. Most notably: why did I wait until just before an election campaign to unload on passive aggressive terrain theorist propaganda that has successful enough to trigger large parts of the conspiracy community? What happens when the normies get hold of it?

Hmm. Do I back off? (Well, yes, for now, that’s an easy one; compromises are inevitable and unavoidable in politics.)

Do I repent? (Lol no.)

Do I engage in the now common practice of mass deletion of potentially cancel-worthy social media baggage? (Not sure, although I have already removed a particularly spicy post about Lin Wood and Jeffery Epstein.)

Holy shit: what if some major party dirt digger is actually determined enough to track down my DTWH Twitter account and uncover all my mean tweets from my MAGA/Qtard phase?

I honestly don’t know how to negotiate my current political persona with my old one. What I do know is that I regret none of my conspiracy background, because it is who I am and it is ultimately why I am so sure that I need to be doing this. And what I also know is that the last thing we need is another political candidate airbrushing their true selves.

So, if you are reading this from the normie world (and I assume there are now at least a few of you, given the recent influx of sign ups I have had): welcome, and good luck. You will find plenty on these pages to trigger and offend you, and that’s just fine. In fact, if I may offer some unsolicited advice, you may find the next year or so less challenging if you start to take seriously some of the theories you have been told were bat shit crazy.

The whole reason I started my blog was to redeem the conspiracy theorist archetype, and maybe this political thing is the universe offering me the opportunity to undertake this redemption on a more visible platform. Maybe, after the election in 7 days time, this is what I come back to, and I truly can’t wait to engage fully again with our amazing Substack community.

Or maybe, if the political planets align, I’m committed to this new phase of my life for the foreseeable future. And, for all my initial misgivings, I am kinda warming to the political life.

To be clear: not the dodgy preference arrangements, the pro-Jibby Jab media hit pieces, or going a week without my lifeline of daily yoga and green smoothies. What I am warming to is what politics is (or at least should be) fundamentally about: the process of talking to people, engaging with and respecting their differing worldviews and realities, allowing them to be heard, and in doing so having them offer up to you their personal story to the extent that I (or probably they) were not expecting. It is a very special and privileged position to be in, and I feel like I am a better person already for it.

I’m even starting to warm to the whole idea of seeing my mug plastered around the country. Well… kinda.