These anti-lockdown protests, never attended by more than a few thousand people, are small by Australian standards. And unlike Americans, Australians are not politically inclined to demands for liberty and choice as much as we are for fairness and solidarity. (The name of the national anthem is “Advance Australia Fair.”) As Australia’s First Nations people knew and settler-colonial Australians learned on arrival, individualism is far less useful than collaboration on a continent where everything from the weather to the insects is trying to kill you, all the time.

Even as some lockdown restrictions ease, Australians continue to comply with public health orders, which even now enjoy overwhelming public support. But where lockdowns remain, far-right activists have seized a rare chance to march on empty streets.

In September, a small gathering of Melbourne workers protesting vaccine mandates suddenly swelled in size as far-right figures urged their followers to join. Images of the carnage that followed were, of course, eagerly shared by right-wing American influencers.

Once you understand the coordination at play, where content is produced and fed back in a mind-mangling loop, a strange theatrical quality to these events makes sense.