The Democracy Project’s resident NZ First apologist, Chris Trotter, argues this new hard right racist Government IS NOT hard right while other defenders of this new hard right racist Government bemoan ‘why can’t we be friends‘ because that’s the new game now, minimise and downplay how far off the rails this Spite Government has been driven by an embittered post Covid electorate.
Most National voters wanted a 10% increase in their property values, they didn’t want a race war fuelled by conspiracy theory culture war revenge fantasies.
Trotter argues that this is NOT a hard right Government so as to justify his support of NZ First.
Let’s consider The Democracy Project’s position.
It is not hard right to denigrate Māori and remove te reo from Government agencies when National’s own MPs can’t properly name the English version!
It’s not hard right to implement Q Anon conspiracy theories over the WHO!
It’s not hard right to espouse conspiracy theories that the entire Media were bribed!
It’s not hard right to allow 8000 tobacco deaths for tax cuts!
It’s not hard right to immediately pass legislation attacking worker rights by killing off Fair Pay Agreements and giving large corporations the right to exploit workers for 90 days!
It’s not hard right to push for a legislative redefinition of the Treaty Principles against indigenous interests and dress it up as legitimate democratic concerns!
It’s not hard right to take money from public transport and climate change funds for tax cuts!
It’s not hard right to give feral antivaxxers a grievance carnival!
It’s not hard right to take $555 million from poor families for rich ones!
It’s not hard right to threaten journalists!
It’s not hard right to ban public funding from community sports groups if they have a Trans player!
It’s not hard right to deny climate change or suck up to America!
The Democracy Project parrots incrementalist Max Rashbrooke and minimises just how extreme this hard right racist climate denying Government truly are so as to remove momentum for genuine Left wing universalism narratives.
While LINO incrementalists are helping the Right anaesthetize an effective Left wing response, the Right are terrified that the backlash to the extremism of this new Government will hurt them so either do a Liam Hehir and claim the fears are overplayed, do a Tracy Watkins and bemoan ‘why can’t we be friends‘ or do a Paula Bennett and blame the Left for reacting against this new far right racist climate denying Government.
This is a hard right racist climate denying Government bound together by a shared glee to bash those their voters despise.
It is made this way because Luxon is so weak and David Seymour and Winston Peters are so powerful.
ACT and NZ First are rewarding the fringe elements of NZ Society with culture war revenge fantasies and we all have to pretend that’s normal.
We all have to pretend Qanon conspiracy theories as social policy is normal.
This isn’t Democracy, it’s Majoritarianism and the base value of Majoritarianism is that 51% can vote to kill the other 49%.
Democracy requires values beyond Majoritarianism or it is merely the whip of the Authoritarian.
We deserve better insights than right wing apologists and incremental centrists.
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Right on Martyn, Right on.
We kid ourselves when we claim we have a ‘democracy’.
A precept of democracy is that the majority rules. This is certainly not what MMP has provided. Very minor parties have used MMP to extort extremist policies from coalition deals.
Until the electorial law requires the major election winners to work together we will continue this backwards and forwards march to oblivion.
Not to mention the massive funding imbalance provided by vested ‘business interests’ to get the hard right coalition of clusterfuckery across the line.
The election was bought…no question about that….
The country has bought a clueless shambles and boy are they about to pay for that ill thought through low IQ decision big time….
There is not a single thing in their much vaunted ‘100 day plan’ that you can point to and say that it will shift the dial in a positive direction for the betterment of society in general.
Not one!
This will be a terrible 3years, if it goes the distance, controlled by a circus of clowns, jokers, boguns and wide-boys.
We have turned into a very dumb, dirty, shit for brains, conspiratorial, unsophisticated country and i just can’t see any light at the end of the tunnel in the near future.
One has to be realistic!!
“It’s not hard right to give feral antivaxxers a grievance carnival!”
In which case Chris Trotter is hard right given that he is allowing anti-vax sentiments on his blog – after saying he wouldn’t, and castigating people for posting them. Maybe he’s discovered that controversy generates clicks.
Curious. Not so long ago Chris Trotter was calling on the powers of the state to come down hard on the anti-vaxers protesting outside parliament.
I always admired Chris Trotters writing ability. And singing at the funerals of comrades. Doubt he would be welcome there now. I guess as people grow older they are allowed to change their minds, but for me, there is no excuse when you claim to be “of the Left”.
“I always admired Chris Trotters writing ability. And singing at the funerals of comrades. Doubt he would be welcome there now.”
Indeed!
You could be referring to Gerry (who I know as Gerard) – among others.
Toby Hill would not only be rolling his eyes but writhing in his grave. Gerard is probably rolling as well.
Always interesting to try to understand how supposed ‘lefties’ get to go down the rabbit hole. Sometimes you just have to accept that quite a few were never really that genuine to begin with.
The inability of people to change their minds politically stems from the indoctrination they went through as children.
And who indoctrinated them, Bob? All policy should be based on evidence something remiss with our new government. It’s all about the 1-2% and we are going to pay for it.
That assumes that Chris Trotter “changed his mind politically”. The truth may be more complex than that.
Assumption is the mother of all fuckups. Bob has history.
Great work @ MB.
You know that smell when a mouse dies behind the fridge? I’ve smelled that sell lingering around trotter after reading some of his work. The kitchen’s nice and clean. The cupboards and shelves are tidy and dusted. The food’s fresh and the dishes are done and yet… there’s that pong. I wonder how much they paid him?
winston peters is a Machiavellian lawyer working in the dark against his fellow man. And woman.
Do the research? National party = Douglas confederate = one time labour finance minister= ACT = Don Brash = photo of don brash and peters doing latte’s dahlings = Wine Box inquiry = peters fake-as attempts at pretending he was digging deep for the dirt of which there was plenty………… and found nothing.
Then… Forty years of neo-liberalism. Forty. Years. Our country’s fucked, we’re fucked, everything’s fucked. Except of course our wonderfully rich 14 multi-billionaires, 3118 multi-millionaires each with $50 mil nett and let’s not forget those beautiful, fabulous, amazing, precious, essential foreign owned banks taking $180.00 a second nett 24/7/365 out of our country. Wow! Thank God for them. Where would we be without the obscenely rich and their four foreign owned banks enabled by a deviant, fascist, clique of old ugly white men courted by a Maori lawyer in a white man’s pin stripe suit. The word ‘suckers’ hardly seems strong enough to describe us.
As I’ve written here before. We need a royal commission of inquiry up and into every crack and crevice of every AO/NZ politician since about 1910 but specifically from 1936 when the national party was formed.
YAWWWWN!
A new year and the same chips on your shoulders we see, you are an envious little man CB, you will go to your grave bitter and twisted whilst the banks you rage against will still be making money, the millionaires and billionaires will increase in numbers.
Sad that this keeps you up at nights…sad…sad man!
YAWWWN. Another year and I’m right still has the chip on his shoulder requiring him to have to respond to CB.
Sad that he feels the need to stay up at night ready to troll through TDB to hunt down CB’s posts…sad sad fuck.
Absolutely correct I’m right we don’t need the envy and hate expressed on this site by countryboy.
Absolute fucking nonsense Bob the thick, you retard.
I’m actually a man of letters so your insults don’t offend me but rather highly amuse me.
Please keep it up I enjoy your devotion.
Is that you Squeaky….Mike Judge lol
Thank you for including me, I shall wear it with honour!
Another right wing troll on this site who spreads his dross across many brilliantly written posts. I know you envy Countryboy’s intellect Bob, we can all tell. You and Im right should get a room.
I think intellect and countryboy in the same sentence is a contradiction.
I hold no envy for anyone,thats a common trait of the left.
You thinking is a contradiction. Countryboy on the other hand would chew you up and spit you out in any debate. Fact!
Really?
Think again.
No need, I was correct the first time you silly little man. I note your personal attacks, so clearly jealous of Countryboy.
Wow Bob’s gone full on cancelling others with opinions, it’s like the right are the only ones allowed to post. It’s truly a shame you don’t have an original idea Bob rather than your usual droll attack on others. Perhaps one day when you’re an adult as you are still very immature.
Thank you for recognising my youth.
And of course your droll posts and you are welcome. Time for your afternoon nap.
Too early.
liar
All you get from a Royal Commission is an old man’s nocturnal omissions.
Great comments as usual countryboy, bang on the money! Winston Peters & David Seymour are both cheeks of the same arse, slimey, non produce fuckwits who have never done a honest days work in their entire lives! Seymour worked for 7 mths in his Family’s business, blew his wadd then chose to enter Politics as the ultimate Govt pig trough, Dole bludger, that’s his entire work experience as a Engineering graduate & Winston, the great Lawyer himself & his “much ado about fuck all” Wine box bullshit, this pin striped suited numb nut has never accomplished anything in his capacity as a Lawyer & especially nothing as a Politician, a complete waste of oxygen, absolutely hopeless, a geriatric imbecile that any amateur Journalist can get under his skin with ease, without even trying, because he’s so easily triggered! I wouldn’t call us suckers as you put it, more like willing participants in the game that’s being played by these corrupt Politicians who play everyone against each other but ultimately cater to their various interest groups & line their own pockets & that comes at the expense of ordinary NZers just trying to keep food on the table & provide the basics of life for their Families of being Housed, Fed, watered & clothed, it’s not much to ask for but the right especially exploit these basic needs as a extortion scheme, the privatisation of Human rights as a Neoliberal get rich quick scam, it’s pathetic!
To be fair, our Rimmer lookalike has an electrical engineering degree.
It’s nigh impossible to earn one of those without indulging in exceptionally hard work.
All the same I do wonder if, by having such a narrow focus on one’s life (earning such a degree) at a formative stage of his development, it isolated him from understanding some of the realities of how society actually runs.
Unbalanced CB – I don’t think that you are justified in saying ‘I wonder how much they paid him’. Jumping to judgment is not what we should be doing these days. We don’t know who is 100% right, and should have doubts about our own certainties and sentiments and opinions. What strategies are appropriate to adopt, to what end, and who most important to be influenced, and what kernel of concern lies throbbing in the individual’s brain?
A bit of soapbox spiel, or even sophistry from me. The more I read about things that have been ascertained in the past, the more wonderful humans seem. (Just read about the book Longitude and John Harrison in 1700s who designed an accurate clock that led to certainties of location for shipping.) Then one wonders with all our knowledge, how can we be such tripe-hounds as at present?
There is an important and revealing saying: ‘Do as I say and not as I do’, we are in constant interaction between doing and thinking and maintaining the facts and fictions of our society’s rules. The idea that life is a set of fractals infinitesimally changing is an interesting thought. Look at the precision and imagination of MC Escher; we all have abilities probably never realised or utilised. So think hard CB before defining distaste. We may be carrying out elaborate charades to each other. While finding out, life isn’t boring, and it’s a miracle to be formed and born at all.
Are the French tops at questioning our certainties?:
Freedom is the power to choose our own chains.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
There are always four sides to a story: your side, their side, the truth
and what really happened.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau – https://www.azquotes.com/author/12698-Jean_Jacques_Rousseau
It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.
Voltaire – https://www.azquotes.com/author/15138-Voltaire/tag/killing
* Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.
* Commitment is an act, not a word.
* Only the guy who isn’t rowing has time to rock the boat.
* Three o’clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.
Jean-Paul Sartre
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/jeanpaul_sartre_103655
Honesty was brought to politics in New Zealand in 1936.
The jokester who keeps giving, keep up the laughs Bob the thick.
Pleased to amuse you NSC.
You most certainly do
I suspect what Trotter supports in Winston is his racial politics. He wants the Maori subordinated in their place under the Westminster system as equals regardless of race. Because that system is essentially elitist as the ruling class and their political pawns buy their seats, he is serving the ruling class. He always took the side of the moderates in the labour movement turning on the militants who broke the labour law. And when the Rogergnomes took over Labour he swung to the Left under Anderton to re-centre the Party. Now we see him exposed in the dead centre of NZF as the classic bourgeois intellectual moderating both conservatives and radicals to rebalance the centre.
I don’t think it’s that. Trotter just supports Peters because, in general, Peters puts the brakes on any progress. Peters is a spoiler.
in my view Chris Trotter is a very good political historian and a good writer (when he keeps away from attempts at the short story genre). But he’s utterly phobic in regard to anything that will meaningfully shift the economic dial in respect to the unfair distribution of wealth and power structures within the neoliberal paradigm. Follow Chris Trotter’s directions to get from A to B and you’d never shift from your starting point for fear of spooking someone with actual movement.
Peters spoiler-ism allows Trotter to stand in one spot and wring his hands on the sidelines to his heart’s content.
Nah. Why would Trotter risk ridicule from lesser beings for playing all sides unless he is committed to propping up the illusion that parliamentary democracy is fair and equal when it’s actually the democratic dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. That is serious work which demands a constant re-balancing of left and right from t he centre.
“he is committed to propping up the illusion that parliamentary democracy is fair and equal when it’s actually the democratic dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. That is serious work which demands a constant re-balancing of left and right from t he centre.”
Isn’t that the same as maintaining the status quo? I.e. putting the brakes on change and progress, as I stated.
Trotter’s contribution to “constant re-balancing of left and right ” is to moan and groan offer analyses and wring his hands at the state of things, but come out with dire warnings the moment anyone attempts any change.
Chris Trotter: New Zealand’s Jimmy Dore
Didn’t know Trotter supported NZ 1st. Why is politics still strangely mysterious. Just knew, and GS knew, we had to leave his post. And he’s never posted here again. Why the blindness?
It would help if you were clear about the other talkers, Martyn. You have a three monkeys attitude to supposedly Left posters. Truth sets the people free. That’s pretty obvious with both The Standard and Bowalley Rd.
I have been disappointed in Chris Trotters writings on this blog for a while , 2023 was down with Labour it was as if he thought he had joined the elite , it got to the stage that he didn’t know who or what he stood for. One wonders with all his years of very leftist views what’s changed, why would this very clever writer start writing against his own hard left beliefs. One now wonders if he has been a wolf in sheep’s clothing this whole time, writing one thing but actually meaning another, this means he is nothing but a hypocrite nothing more nothing less. History tells you that the right is always right and they will never change their spots however the left can be bought when it suits their narrative aka Douglas , Prebble Jones to name a few. Winston Peters is a prime example of the right ,he may have gone pretend left in 2017 however he is back where he belongs because he is just another old hypocrite who should never be trusted ever again by the left the same as apparently his old mate Chris Trotter.
It takes a strong mind and a strong will to stand up against the group you once supported in this case common sense trumped blind loyalty.
No its called hypocrisy Bob
Forgive Bob , he’s not too bright.
I think it is a mistake to concentrate the diatribe on Chris Trotter and away from reasoned ideas for how to go forward for the country. No-one can get just what they want – so concentrating on how we can form restorative and useful active units that work with each other and as part of the country’s enterprises and society would take all the time we have and all the brain cells that are still operating after the cessation of cant and rote learning is attained.
FGS don’t waste time on just attacking someone as a whole, suggest different ways than have been suggested to achieve results. Think how to use the ways of the foolish for some useful end, and there are a lot of foolish and comfortably off in NZ. How to get them to move? What direction? And for others’ good as well as their own? Pull the rug from under their feet? Actually reality is striking here, sinkholes and potholes are appearing under their feet.
And criminality in dealings is disintegrating the fabric of society that we had knitted together in a reasonably attractive design that seems to have gone out of style. Bring back the bustle I say! Don’t just stand around throwing stones at an effigy you dorks.