Jair Bolsonaro's landslide win in the Brazilian presidential elections is the latest expression of a growing willingness by voters to embrace radical hardliners in response to a growing disillusionment with "politics as usual".

With many members of the outgoing government facing significant jail time as a result of corruption at the highest levels, Bolsonaro was seen as the only choice by a significant chunk of the electorate despite being well-known for his homophopic, misogynistic and racist views.

Often billed as the "South American Donald Trump", Bolsonaro does not look out of place on the world stage when you compare him to leaders such as Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Phillipines' President Rodrigo Duterte.

Erdogan, who is currently being feted for calling Saudi Arabia out over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, is well known as an opponent of anything like a free press.

He has jailed hundreds of journalists, sacked thousands of judges and prosecutors, police officers and public servants and has been roundly criticised for his apparent desire to roll back many of the democratic and social reforms introduced by Mustafa Kamal Ataturk, the man who presided over the birth of modern Turkey.

Duterte, who is alleged to have sanctioned non-judicial killings of drug dealers while a provincial governor, came to office on a wave of dissatisfaction with "politics as usual" in the Philippines; a country which has been struggling with corruption and cronyism since the Marcos era.

More and more people are embracing extreme candidates and radical policies as an antidote to what they see as a self-serving "born to rule" political class that has presided over what they see as many decades of the rich getting richer and the little people paying the price.

Trump's rusted on supporters include millions of blue collar families who believe they were left behind by both the Democrats and the Republicans for decades.

It was this sentiment that allowed Trump to defeat his more conventional Republican presidential nominees before going on to defeat Hillary Clinton, the quintessential Washington insider, in 2016.

The same forces were at work in the United King during the Brexit campaign which saw older voters, many of whom feared the country they had grown up in was disappearing before their eyes, carry all before them.

In Australia faith in politicians is close to an all time low. This is thanks to the in-fighting that has seen the prime ministership change hands seven times since 2006: Howard; Rudd; Gillard; Rudd; Abbott; Turnbull; and now Morrison).

Unless our current parliamentarians manage to persuade people they have real solutions to the real problems, such as climate change, the plight of the refugees on Manus and Nauru, energy pricing and security, law and order and social justice and equality, they will be dumped in favour of independents and those offering an alternative to business as usual.

The recent election of Kerryn Phelps as the member for Wentworth is the best case scenario. There are more extreme candidates who would be happy to tap widespread dissatisfaction, should the major parties continue to prove themselves unable to deal with the issues that actually matter to voters.