We need a radical populist not a reactive populist

With all the focus on populism, it seems to have escaped many of the political punditry in NZ that we already have a populist Prime Minister.

Key is the very embodiment of reactive populism. His laid back anti-intellectualism connects with NZs negative egalitarianism, he can shrug off scientific consensus, empirical based social policy and academic research with the same blind faith of the ill educated who simply refuse to be wrong, as if being wrong was merely an opinion.

We don’t need another reactive populist, we need a radical populist. The difference is that a reactive populist simply plays to the lesser angels of the information overloaded masses, a radical populist challenges the structures of power used by the few to subjacate the many. A radical populist would tackle corporate power, would tackle climate change, would tackle inequality, would tackle poverty with policy that overthrows much of the neoliberal welfare state.

Sanders and Corbyn are radical populists.

Gareth Morgan could be this figure in NZ if he can turn his UBI into a populist move against the neoliberal welfare state while appealing to centre-right urban voters who acknowledge the pointless counterproductive cruelty used against beneficiaries. .