3 reasons why it’s going to be so hard to be Green this year

I love the Greens and often vote for them, but I think it’s going to be a VERY hard year for the Greens for 3 of reasons:

1 – Their own alienating activists:

The first problem for the Greens are their own woke middle class activists who are so toxic and alienating. These are the people who led the 2016 social media purges and set in place the vast culture war backlash that saw so many men on the Left driven out of the movement into the arms of the reactionary right. On the Left our woke middle class activists are great at Free the nipple mummy blogger militant vegan cyclist protests, not so good at challenging the hegemonic economic infrastructure  of neoliberalism. The good news is that the vast chunk of Wellington Woke have been chased off Twitter and Facebook and just reside in BlueSky where no one gives a fuck, so fingers crossed they will be mute and ignored this election.

 

2 – Invisible non vote support domestically and in Australia:

One of the most difficult problems for the Greens is that even if they do well, they won’t know until the Specials get counted. They  need to appeal to the youth non vote WHILE chasing voters who have moved to Australia, both of those groups are invisible in NZ political polling so the Greens could make real inroads but won’t know it until the final votes are counted.

 

3 – NZF leapfrogging Greens as 3rd largest party:

This is the real existential threat to the Greens this election. If they lose their 3rd party ranking to NZFirst, Marama and Chloe will have no choice but to bend the knee and suck Winston’s boot. Winston will want Prime Ministership and if Labour fold, the Greens will have no choice but to fall in line with Labour or enable a second National/ACT/NZF Government. This is why the Greens desperately need te Pati Māori to generate an overhang so that they can present a united negotiating front with Labour and cut NZF out.

In 2026, it won’t be easy being Green.