Why Right are suddenly frightened at the backlash to their hard right racist Government and how LINO incrementalists are helping them
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 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
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.
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.