It’s election year, that means arguments with people and debates on what our country needs politically, economically, environmentally, culturally and socially.
Social media hate algorithms have cocooned many into echo chamber padded cells where the delusional and ignorant dance with a level of self certainty that is utterly undeserved.
They are unreachable.
Ensuring you have the energy to engage and convince in Election 26 means avoiding feeding the trolls, so here are a list of Red Flags that you should use to slowly back away and sprint from when encountered out in the wild.
Remember, there are some people who are simply too far gone to reach, and your emotional energy needs to be spent on recruiting the reasonable in Election 2026, not engaging with the demented.
RED FLAG 1 – NZ First voters
They are simply the worst. Their mix of redneck cracker philosophy alongside the sexual excitement generated whenever Winston or Shane attacks immigrant MPs, environmentalists or the Treaty mark them out as racist conspiracy theorists who should be avoided at all cost. Their culture war boomer electorate will never turn from their bigotry or petty prejudices. They can not be reasoned with, nor should anyone ever try! The moment you hear a family member is voting NZF, cut them off immediately and sow the space between you with salt. The next time a pandemic occurs that kills Boomers and leaves everyone else ok, we should just let God do his work. The good news is that the millisecond Winston dies, this cult of personality will die too because most culture war boomers are so socially isolated now that they don’t have the emotional skill set to like new things. Once Winston is gone, NZ First is buried with him and lots of culture war boomers will fill that empty space by getting crypto scammed.
RED FLAG 2 – Anyone who works for Jordan Williams (or has numbers in their Twitter handle)
Jordan Williams is the Draco Lucius Malfoy of corporate influence. Anyone who works for Jordan Williams: The Taxpayers’ Union; NZ Initiative; Atlas Network; Groundswell; Federated Farmers; Campaign Company; Free Speech Union, Hobsons’ Pledge or has numbers in their Twitter handle, should be avoided like cancer. They are bad faith actors working for corporate interests while arousing your bigotry. Engaging with them is like trying to debate an arsonist about fire prevention inside a house doused in petrol while the arsonist keeps excitingly flicking a lighter. They are a fake union who are pimping for a fake debate between two of the worst neoliberal architects in NZ political history. Why not add Roger Douglas, Milton Friedman and Satan into the mix if we have enough money for AI fudge fantasies? Engagement is not in your interests. Denouncement is.
RED FLAG 3 – Anyone who subscribes to The Spinoff
Jesus wept, anyone who actually donates to the fucking Spinoff should be avoided like the plague. Imagine being at a middle class vegan dinner party stuck between Emily Writes and Toby Manhire arguing over who hates heteronormative white cis males the most. For desert they cancel you for misusing pronouns. Could you imagine anything more po-faced and tedious? Poke my eyes out with hot spoons now. Bless the Spinoff wokies, their fetishised self identity is far greater than the common ground between us. Best to be left alone on BlueSky where no one will take notice.
RED FLAG 4 – ACT Voters
NZFirst voters are lonely old racists scared by eclipses, where as ACT supporters are gleefully willing sadists who burn books with relish and ideological zeal. Most NZFirst voters wouldn’t know what ideological meant, or zeal. What you can excuse in the celebration of ignorance that is NZFirst voters you can’t ignore in the wilful malice of ACT voters. If you are still willing to buy into the race war, public service mutilating, zionist appeasing libertarianism that ACT have displayed over the last 2 years, you are corrupted and infested beyond reason. Aggressive use of napalm is the only solution here.
RED FLAG 5 – Right Wing Māori Social Media Influencers
Indigenous culture’s everywhere have a shared experience of generational trauma alongside low education outcomes and high social poverty, and Māori are no different. Include cosmology and mysticism, Māori like all indigenous cultures wounded by colonisation are open to cultural manipulations that manifest in unexpected ways.
Consider the hysteria over Māori anti-vaxxer Billy Te Kahika.
There is now a new generation of Right Wing Social Media Influencers doused in toxic conspiracy claims that parrot Hobsons’ Pledge talking points about ‘Elite Māori’.
70% of the Māori population are under the age of 40, their vehicle for comprehension is social media and these Toxic Right Wing Māori Social Media Influencers are currency to their understanding of the world around them.
The threat their Tikanga Grift pose’s wider Māoridom can’t be under appreciated, especially with the enormous cut backs in funding for Māori media.
The cuzzie bro Aussie delivery is great for the Tickity Tockity, terrible for actual Tikanga and kaupapa.
RED FLAG 6 – Anyone who positively quotes The Platform, Reality Check Radio or The Centrist
Every family has a lonely uncle who seems to believe that quoting The Platform, Reality Check Radio or The Centrist is the height of intellectual contrarianism. It isn’t. The Platform, Reality Check Radio and The Centrist are the 3 biggest reasons you don’t invite that Uncle over for Christmas Lunch or Dinner any longer. Keep it that way! They are insufferable and can not be convinced of anything other than their own cleverness. Finding God, wearing bowling shirts after getting a viagra prescription or losing their liver from alcoholism is the only way out for these Uncles.
RED FLAG 7 – Anyone who references Chris Trotter as Left Wing
Culture War Boomer Warlord Chris Trotter has blazed a trail into the right wing wilderness that Matt McCarten now seems doomed to wander down. Total capitulation to populist culture war garbage aimed against any minority that scares brittle sensibilities and fragile social values do not for a fun time down at Galbraith’s Pub make. In decades to come, the ‘Bittering-of-the-Boomer-generation post-Covid will be a required sociological course in the free community climate change enforced Autarky kibbutz University that all first year citizens wanting to graduate with voting rights will need to take after the polar ice caps melt. Those brave new citizen-students at the Green re-education campus will attempt to understand why the Boomers walked away from climate change obligations and social equity issues because of unisex toilets. As the afternoon monsoon rain drenches the near tropical climate of Invercargill, these brave new citizen-students will ponder how the environmental hell hole Culture War Boomers left them in was justified because Jacinda had the temerity of saving 20 000 lives. Until that distant time in the near certain future when we can comprehend why so many Boomers went bitter, best to mute and change the channel. We are all looking at you Dr Bryce Edwards.
RED FLAG 8 – Anyone who supports ZB
The smug condescending hosts aside, the never ending scream of advertising frantically selling retirement villages, antler horn sex pills and quack cure all snake-oil products is like a never ending commercial aimed at people dumber than ‘As seen on TV’ product buyers. ZB has all the charm of a kindergarten next to a horse hoof rendering factory, it is Current Affairs for people who only buy a house to get into the Grammar or Kings Zone. They wouldn’t stop their car if they accidentally hit a dog. Or a pedestrian. They actively berate homeless people for being homeless. These people would have a threesome with Wayne Brown and consider it the pinnacle of their sexual adventures. The wealthy ZB listener has 2 batches, three property investments and their boats are technically too large to be considered as recreational fisherman for tax purposes. The poor ZB listener drives Taxis.
RED FLAG 9 – Anyone arguing for a new Māori Political Party
Anyone who is actively arguing for a new Māori Political Party should be avoided. Splitters can only split and in an election that demands the Left work together, splitters can’t be tolerated.
This Election, engage with those who can be reasoned with, don’t waste your energy feeding bad faith Right Wing Hate Trolls.
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