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There is a great deal more at stake than national security in Scott Morrisons hyper-partisan and grossly dishonest accusation that Anthony Albanese and his deputy, Richard Marles, are carrying the hopes of the Chinese regime at the forthcoming election.

It undermines the stability of our democracy and shows we have reached a dangerous point in our political discourse.

Two factors are at work here: extremely divisive political rhetoric and the willingness of the countrys dominant newspaper company, Rupert Murdochs News Corporation, to lend it a megaphone.

Morrison and Murdoch are trying to do to Australias democracy what Murdoch and Donald Trump did to Americas between 2016 and 2021.

They are working together to create division where none exists in pursuit of their own political and ideological interests. No lie is too big to be used for this purpose.

The English philosopher A.C. Grayling and two American political scientists, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt among many others have shown how these factors have combined to weaken democracy in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Broadly speaking, their arguments go like this:

Hyper-partisanship in which fierce disagreement is expressed in extreme language leads to a breakdown in the consensus on which democracy depends.

When the consensus breaks down, so does the acceptance by each side that the other side has political legitimacy.

When that acceptance breaks down, the peaceful transfer of power that democracies achieve by holding elections is severely threatened. We saw this on January 6 2021, when the Trumpian mob assailed the Capitol in Washington.

Propaganda, spin and outright falsehoods promoted in the professional mass media and on social media contribute powerfully to these consequences.

Levitsky and Ziblatt, in their book How Democracies Die, argue extreme polarisation leads political rivals to see each other as mutual threats. This in turn encourages a win-at-all-costs attitude and leads to a corrosive refusal to accept that the other side is entitled to govern.

If democracies were to be diverted from this destructive course, it was necessary for them to recapture the civility, sense of freedom and shared purpose that defined democracys essence in the mid-20th century.

It is here that the professional mass media have a crucial role to play. It lies within their power to promote civility of discourse, articulate a societys shared purpose and debunk lies.

Read more: Too much sugar, not enough spice: 60 Minutes' Morrison interview was not journalism, it was confected pap

However, after Morrisons crude and baseless accusations, Murdochs newspapers, including The Australian, The Daily Telegraph and the Herald Sun, and his Sky News channel all trumpeted the message that Albanese and Marles were Beijings preferred candidates for the election.

Morrison used as evidence an article in the Global Times, a propaganda mouthpiece for the Chinese government, written by former Australian diplomat Bruce Haigh, entitled Weak Australian leadership inhibits potential relationship reset with China.

Purely as a matter of logic, it is difficult to follow the Morrison argument.

The proposition seems to be that he can swallow material from a recognised Chinese government propaganda outfit and use it as credible evidence that someone else namely the Labor leadership is being manipulated by the Chinese government.

On top of that, the article quoted was far from flattering of Albanese. It characterised him as a cautious politician inclined to accept the US view of the world without giving it any independent thought.

At this point, it is only fair to point out there have been two remarkable exceptions to the Murdoch media chorus. Both Greg Sheridan, The Australians foreign editor, and Andrew Bolt, the Herald Sun and Sky News commentator, have spoken out, strongly disapproving of Morrisons accusations.

In doing so, they echoed what the more responsible elements of the Australian media have done, focusing on the warnings from the current head of ASIO, Mike Burgess, and a previous head, Dennis Richardson, that Morrisons conduct undermines national security.

Read more: Grattan on Friday: Faraway conflict feeds into Morrison's national security pitch

The election is still scheduled for three months time, and the pressure on these responsible elements of the media is only likely to become more intense. Who knows what new conspiracy theories and hobgoblins the politicians will drum up between now and then?

Much will depend on whether Australias political leaders can climb out of the gutter, not forgetting that Albanese slung the Manchurian candidate slur back at Morrison.

Another important factor will be what happens on social media.

Hyper-partisanship is fuelled by social media through the echo-chamber effect, a phenomenon American political analyst Cass Sunstein examines in his book #republic.

He argues people could join the political debate wholly within these echo chambers among like-minded people, isolated from alternative views. They are exposed only to information of questionable quality and arguments that become increasingly strident and extreme as participants stir themselves up into a frenzy of hostility towards the opposing viewpoint.

This hostility then provides further incendiary material for unscrupulous politicians to exploit. Not long after, the contents of echo chambers can seep out into the public discourse.

Read more: 'National security' once meant more than just conjuring up threats beyond our borders

Australias democracy is in some respects better designed than Americas, especially with its independent electoral commission, preferential ballot and compulsory voting. These all provide some protection against the electoral impact of extremism.

But it is not indestructible. It rests on consensus, and that is preserved by tolerance and restraint, what Levitsky and Ziblatt call the guardrails of democracy.

We have seen precious little of either in the past week from the Morrison-Murdoch machine, leaving it to the rest of the media to try to see that those guardrails hold up.

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Scare-mongering on China is a threat to our democracy, and responsible media must guard against it - The Conversation AU