Over the weekend Europeans elected their new representatives, turning in increasing numbers to parties at the ends of the political spectrum. Europe polarised in a three way retreat from the centre. Across Europe and in Britain support for the far-right, far- left and Green parties surge. The losers were centrist parties.
This is a very interesting trend that is reflected in New Zealand politics, for months we have heard rumours about a new right wing / Christian / conservative party and in recent weeks this has consolidated into Alfred Ngaro and Hannah Tamaki both offering Christian, conservative options to voters. Under the radar we also have Vernon Tava and his ‘teal’ Sustainable New Zealand party. It appears that the New Zealand electorate is following the international trend and fragmenting, the centrist rump slowly sliced away by increasingly extreme parties at the edges.
Although unlikely in the immediate aftermath of the Christchuch massacre I predict that it is only a matter of time before the immigration card is put back on the table by a small political party. This issue has been a feature of New Zealand politics for a long-time and is unlikely to go away.
The retreat from the centre reflects an increasing acceptance of the unreasonable ‘black and white’ dialogue of extremist positions. Regardless of whether they are right, left or Green, extremists speak in a clear lexicon using terms like good or bad, right versus wrong, victim versus oppressed and their answers to problems are simple. European electors have looked past stability and tolerance and sought answers in the simplicity of the extremes.
I’m not sure why; maybe voters have become disillusioned or impatient with the centre, maybe the simple ‘black and white’ positions of the extremists have greater appeal or maybe an increasing number of young voters are looking to the extremists for solutions to problems that the centre just doesn’t seem able to address.
The problem with this trend is that within proportional electoral models (like MMP) splitting the vote means that coalitions need to be formed. In coalitions major parties are forced to do deals with minor parties; colloquially known as ‘the tail wagging the dog’.
When a ‘dog’ is being led by its ‘tail ‘it is problematic for democracy because it creates a situation in which the ‘tail’ gets a disproportionate amount of attention and the silent majority’s voice (the ‘dog’s’ head and heart) is dampened. Many Daily Blog readers may excited at the thought of a far-left Trotskyite party having a balance of power and ‘wagging the dog’, but I would caution those readers to consider a Christian-conservative party in the same position.
The question is can we do to fight this dangerous trend.
In my opinion we, the voters, need to take back power and ‘stick it to the Man’ by being much more politically involved and expecting more of our politicians. I’m not talking about reviewing all of their historic tweets, You Tube videos and Facebook posts looking for ‘off the cuff’ statements to take offence at (sorry ‘woke’ generation). In fact I don’t care if my local MP is having an affair because many of history’s most impressive politicians were terrible philanderers.
No, what we need is politicians with life experience and judgement. Politicians that are more than just party apparatchiks. I challenge all readers to look through both major party’s lists of MPs. If you do you will be fascinated and possibly scared by the number of smiling, unlined young faces whose CVs say something like “worked in x,y.z electorate office / worked for x,y,z party in parliament then worked for party HQ before being selected” . It is not that I don’t think young people can do a great job. I know they can. It is rather how can we expect them do the difficult job of governing our state responsibly without demonstrating competence in life. Most importantly how can we expect them to be a responsible check on a future extremist ‘tail’ when their hearts and minds know only party dogma?
Of course the parties will argue that I am just a disgruntled silly old man. They will say we should have young MPs because the voice of youth needs to be heard. The central committees and boards that run political parties love young MPs because they are malleable and easily influenced. A young person in a safe electorate earning approx. $ 180,000 p/a is not going to challenge the party hierarchy. That MP is going to do exactly what they are told. The secret people in the shadows keep control and we the voters are kept distant from the real decision-makers.
If we are going to buck the trend and check the extremists we need to re-populate the centre with MPs who have life experience and judgement. People who have their own minds. People that are not swayed by high salaries and dogma but rather by a developed, grown up sense of what is right and what is wrong. Think of American politicians like John McCain or Ted Kennedy. One from the right and one from the left of American politics but both centrists. Both people that had suffered trauma and from that experience had developed wisdom, compassion and an irreducible sense of self.
So the call to action is join a political party. Take part in selection processes. Hold the foolish (whether they are old or young) to account. Demand more from your politicians now because in 2020 we may be needing them to balance a Parliament of extremes.
Ben Morgan
A free-thinking, Gen X aspiring to write. Seeing some bad places means I value love and reason more than most.
Particularly interested in moral and constitutional issues and encouraging a more reasoned civic discourse.
Really isn’t this a fight between brown/black and white people and white people don’t like brown/black people being allowed to migrate to their country especially in large numbers they see this as a threat to them as a people and yet many white races colonised many black/brown peoples taking their land and anything else they could get their dirty little hands on so is this really a religious war or a cultural war grounded in racism.
Any discussion about a retreat from the centre has to acknowledge that the centre has moved greatly over the last 30-40 years. I actually think it’s a retreat from neoloiberalism to well, anywhere else really.
Another thing about the centre. It appears to be the place halfway between the needs of the corporate world and the needs of common people. It’s no different that a compromise with the devil
It’s only natural the middle are going to suffer because it is the middle class that is the class being most destroyed by neoliberalism.
Soon poor will be the majority, with less middle and upper class, and more rich from (administration class, aka politicians) and the super rich benefiting from it all.
The middle class is disappearing in the USA.
“Welcome to the “1099 economy”: The only things being shared are the scraps our corporations leave behind
Companies can hire and fire perma-lancers at will. Is it any wonder the middle class is vanishing before our eyes?”
https://www.salon.com/2015/12/29/the_sharing_economy_partner/
We just need to look at USA where an advanced degree does not exactly guarantee you success. Wages for people with degrees are being lowered.
https://www.salon.com/2019/01/12/from-academic-to-assembly-line-worker-my-life-of-precarity-in-middle-america_partner/
In NZ we are doing the same – wages in many sectors are in real terms getting lower and lower.
30 years ago being a blue collar worker such as a butcher was a career that required skills, qualifications through years of apprenticeships and was paid good money. Now meat is assembled in warehouses from both local and overseas cheaply sourced meat, filled with gases to look fresh and sold by supermarkets. All workers in the process are on or close to minimum wages and with little training. NZ needs more workers because so many more are required in the elaborate processes of cheap unskilled process work that has replaced less qualified workers.
As the government seeks to put in benefits to stop gap poverty, then you find some really unsettling comparisons such as it is nearly the same income to be on an average teachers wage than be on a DPB with 3 kids… each time the government puts in a new subsidy the wages in real terms stay the same or go down, while needing more and more low cost workers to do simple tasks.
Skilled work is disappearing and being replaced by ‘process’ workers which is neither very efficient or lowers costs, but has become a modern ideology of having more cheap workers in a process rather than fewer more skilled workers.
Construction shows this ‘process’ approach to industry doesn’t create good, cheap or efficient buildings for example, but it has become the norm from everything and more and more industries are falling for it, because those at the top, make a lot more profit, than the old way where profits were more distributed.
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