Much has been written about the problems facing democracies around the world with explanations for Trump, Brexit and Le Pen ranging from the inequality caused by 20 years of neo-liberalism, to the rise of Twitter. Obviously more than one factor is at play, but an issue that deserves more attention is the seeming inability of conservative major parties to stand up to conservative minor parties selling simple solutions to complex problems.

While UKIP, the right-wing nationalist party, put Brexit on the agenda in the 2015 election it was David Cameron who promised to have a referendum on an issue that he opposed and subsequently campaigned against. If he had stood up for his beliefs during the election campaign he might still be Prime Minister and the UK might still have a future in the EU. But for the modern conservative, winning is more important than governing.

Abbott's former defence minister famously said that he would not trust Adelaide's Australian Submarine Corporation to ''build a canoe". But the allegedly small government, free trade-loving Abbott, the same man who proudly let the car industry shift offshore, spun on a dime when Senator Nick Xenophon threatened to run candidates in formerly safe Liberal seats. The $50 billion plan to rescue South Australian manufacturing was not born of conservative conviction, but of electoral convenience.

On the progressive side of politics the dynamic appears to be quite different. While Conservatives are quick to embrace the most popular elements of the minor parties on their right flank, Labor parties in Australia and Britain and the Democrats in the US seem to have the opposite instinct. Both Bill Shorten and Hillary Clinton often concede that political rivals on their left flank have ideas which might be attractive in isolation but are unworkable when viewed from a whole of government approach. It's too early to tell what Corbyn means for British labour.

Whether the relative centrism of Shorten and Clinton is driven by a principled approach to economy wide policy development, a pragmatic approach to winning votes in the political centre, or a bit of both will no doubt animate Canberran dinner parties for decades. But regardless of the motivations, it seems clear conservative parties are more easily dragged (or willingly walked?) to the unworkable extreme than centre left parties.

Which brings me to the Australian election. While the polls are neck and neck in the lower house, in the upper house the result is a lay down misere. Proportional representation means that no major party will get close to the 39 votes needed to pass a bill, the number of crossbenchers will likely hit a post-war high, the Greens will be the largest block of minor party senators and, in all likelihood, Pauline Hanson will be elected as a senator for Queensland.

Hanson, a former Liberal candidate, has a successful history of dragging the Coalition's policy position to the right. When she first proposed that the "solution" to people who were fleeing persecution was to "give them fuel, give them food, and turn them back" her views seemed extreme. But when John Howard saw how popular the sentiment was in both regional communities and working-class Labor seats he was quick to embrace the policy and the message. The choice between turning their backs on Malcolm Fraser's liberalism and wedging Labor was not a difficult one for the modern Liberals.

Regardless of the result in Saturday's lower house election the right wing of the Coalition will be keen to use a resurgent Hanson to shift their own party further to the right and wedge the ALP some more. If the Liberals win government such an approach might even be a "successful political strategy" to cover up rising unemployment. But the belief that wedging your opposition via a steady stream of announceables is what governing is all about is the same logic that delivered Brexit.

The reason Johnson is no longer running for prime minister is that he and his colleagues know that his ''success" in wedging working-class voters away from British Labour will come at a huge economic and foreign policy price for the UK. And both Johnson and his colleagues know that the guy who won the Brexit debate with simple slogans and bald-faced lies is the wrong guy to try to develop and manage a path through the painful transition that awaits. Trolling the country is one thing, leading it through self-inflicted pain is another.

In Australia the Coalition won the 2013 election claiming that the carbon tax and mining tax were "wrecking balls" that caused unemployment, high electricity prices and the cows to stop giving milk. Having succeeded in scrapping these modest economic measures the mining boom still busted, manufacturing jobs continued to head offshore, and unemployment continues to rise. What's a conservative government to do?

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton had a relatively quiet election campaign, except when he stepped out to blame unemployment on refugees. Just as Abbott pandered to the populism of climate scepticism over the scientific advice from CSIRO the Turnbull government has ignored the Australian Bureau of Statistics in linking the 730,000 unemployed people in Australia to the 14,000 refugees we settle in Australia each year. As Cameron and Johnson know better than most, blaming migrants for your poor economic management works a treat in the short term but makes running the country that much harder.

With no carbon tax left to blame in Australia, and no one to blame for the budget deficit than itself, it will be tempting for a re-elected Coalition to blame everything from rising house prices to rising unemployment on refugees. But if Hanson is in the Senate she will always be able to outflank them on the right. If the Coalition tells us that migrants are the problem there is little doubt that Hanson will come up with an even simpler "solution". And the shock jocks that love the simple messages mouthed by the likes of Johnson and Abbott will inevitably love Hanson's "common sense approach".

Populism is a dirty word in politics, with polling and focus groups often derided as well. But in a democracy the need to advance policies that are popular, and to understand voter sentiment, is unavoidable and potentially advantageous. The problem isn't that politicians are advancing popular solutions, it is that they are whipping up fears against popular scapegoats. It is simply easier to win an election blaming all of a country's problems on an unpopular minority than it is to win an election selling incremental changes designed to overcome complex problems.

Australia is one of the richest countries in the world living at the richest point in world history. As a nation we can afford to do anything we want, but we cannot afford to do everything we want. As our infrastructure crumbles, our broadband speeds fall behind the rest of the world and our hospital waiting lists lengthen, we could debate the best way to fund and fix such problems. Or we can blame groups who don't get a vote.

Johnson had the good grace to admit that while he was up to the latter he was incapable of the former. Divide and conquer is a great way to win office and a terrible way to build societies. The question facing Australia, and all democracies, is how much longer will so-called major parties allow themselves to sacrifice the ability to govern in order to simply win office. Regardless of Saturday's result the Coalition has shredded its claim to "good economic management" and the ALP has done much better than expected in that same debate. Both parties are fighting off the threat of minor parties, but while the ALP seems determined to distance itself from its left flank parts of the Coalition seems determined to emulate it.

Richard Denniss is the chief economist for The Australia Institute.

Twitter: @RDNS_TAI