Why do we continue to vote for politicians who say ‘I don’t hold a hose, mate’ or who advocate that we drink bleach to fight COVID-19? Chris Bowen, who was set to be Treasurer had Labor won the 2019 federal election, has had plenty of time to think about what went wrong and about why charlatans are winning in the game of politics. For charlatans, the road to political success is paved with dishonesty, disunity, fake news and empty promises. Selling themselves as a new and different alternative to traditional politicians, charlatans have decimated centre-left political parties around the world but offer no solutions to the concerns of the ordinary people who they dupe into voting for them. Between Trump’s disastrous final weeks in the White House, the United Kingdom’s total COVID-19 meltdown under Boris and the three-word slogans driving Scotty from Marketing’s policies, Chris Bowen’s dissection of the politics of charlatanism and his stirring call to defeat it has never been more urgent.