Greens & ACT are now the value parties but use completely different recruitment methods
Based on the incremental nothingness of Labour and the conspiracy theory malice of National, actual political values this election have been relegated now to the Greens and ACT.
To be fair to Labour, one could argue that Jacinda has reshaped the very definition of political leadership and is leading with kindness and that her leadership over the pandemic is a masterclass in leadership but all that leadership seems to feel a tad hollow when the last 3 years have been about as progressively transformative as your average MacDonald’s happy meal.
I mean there’s only so many ‘good first step’ press releases from Unions you can inspire before you are accused of actually just jogging on the spot.
So values this election are only really being promoted by the opposite ends of the political spectrum, but it’s fascinating to watch those opposite ends of the political spectrum use completely different recruitment methods.
ACT are a right wing abomination who have been hijacked by the NZ NRA and are now more pro guns than they are cannabis reform. Any pretence of intellectual righteousness has been traded in for votes, but ACT managed to gain momentum off the back of the free speech culture war last year and David’s advocacy against Government due process with the gun legislation alongside his Euthanasia referendum. This has all combined and reignited ACT as the individualists Political Party with all the values that individualism encourages.
What’s most interesting is that despite being taken over by the NZ NRA, ACT have managed to skyrocket their support from 1% to over 5%. Part of this is National’s demise, part of it is the alienated white male vote who culture war reverberates with, but ACT’s open armed acceptance of anyone who will vote ACT is their biggest plus.
ACT have adopted a broadchurch philosophy where anyone who wants to support ACT under a very broad branch of values can do so, that’s why they’ve managed to jump over 5% with such speed.
The Greens however have taken the absolute opposite approach, they are ‘Pure Temple’.
The Greens are as held hostage by their woke twitter activists the same way ACT are held hostage by the NZ NRA now, but the recruitment culture is completely different.
ACT GUN FETISHIST ACTIVIST: I love guns and I should have the right to love guns, and you should have that right too (plus lower tax stuff)
VS
WOKE GREEN ACTIVIST: All white people are racist, all men are rapists and anyone supporting free speech is an actual Nazi! Oh and I’m a vegan cyclist and you have to be one as well!
The Right look for recruits, the Left look for traitors.
The funniest thing in this election is watching Green Party Woke Activists who have spent the last 3 years alienating everyone on social media for Identity Politics micro aggressions now trying to win people’s support as the Greens are threatened by the 5% threshold.
It’s like they don’t understand how their social media ‘activism’ repels rather than attracts.
I’ve voted Green my entire adult life and believe passionately that the climate crisis is an existential threat and that social justice matters, but even I can see that the current purity test wokeness of online Green activists pushes people away, it doesn’t attract anyone.
The Greens current method of recruitment is best likened to the Pride Parade fiasco in Auckland. Woke Identity Politics activists took over the board and banned Police in uniform because it could trigger trans people who have had a bad past experience with Police and when everyone pulled out after the Police were banned, the event crashed from 30 000 attending to barely 3000.
The Woke Pride Parade Board declared this drop from 30000 to 3000 as a win because only the hardcore true Allies were there and that was better than having to water down woke mantras for wide spread popular support.
That’s the same strategy the Greens have adopted over the last 3 years.
Inclusion through exclusion.
You can’t be part of the Green Party temple unless you believe specific woke mantra, ACT’s broad church recruitment method however has no such concerns or worries because the Individualism values are broad enough to allow anyone through the door.
The nuttiness that in 2020 the ACT Party of NZ could get more votes than the Green Party should send a rocket up the Greens.
But the Greens are probably against fireworks as well, so that won’t be happening anytime soon.
The second this election is over, there needs to be a very deep reflection by the Greens on how and why they are where they are right now.
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100% correct Martyn.
The greens need to go back to where they begun when I joined them in 1999 with the soft passion with wonderful warm people like Jeanette Fitzsimmons just to mention two, who drew to to their message of change using compassion not blunt force like the mob do today, as the current hard line attitude written all over the hard steely face of Marama Davidson make me shudder, she looks more like the worst look of Judith Collins, – that’s why our family have distanced ourselves from the Green Party, and moved to Labour/NZF with a much softer policies and character.
Deep reflection ? By whom ? When Marama Davidson led the charge of the green brigade against Pakeha NZ after the horrific Christchurch massacres, supported by her garrulous acolytes, it was a declaration of not just prejudice, but also ignorance. Constructive dialogue with bigoted ignorami may be an unrealistic expectation.
I assume Davidson got made co-leader because she’s Maori and Maori meant good, in the same way as Davidson seems to think that White means bad. Both are equally preposterous assumptions, and totally nutty.
Most of us live in a fairly multicultural world with no particular problems, it’s the way things are.
If Greens can’t cope with the everyday stuff, the members need to call time on the trouble-makers ASAP and replace them with environmentalists. The future is calling fairly urgently now – and not just in a word which upsets Marama.
” assume Davidson got made co-leader because she’s Maori and Maori meant good, in the same way as Davidson seems to think that White means bad. Both are equally preposterous assumptions, and totally nutty.”
Nope. She got elected by members because she’s very good at what she does. (Also a damned good blogger!)
And Seymour was made leader of ACT because, well, a deal was made and well, it was a party of one!
If, as the polling indicates and ACT get more than one MP, Seymour will get a gauge on what it’s like to have to continually look over your shoulder.At present he has this smug persona because he can’t stab himself in the back.
ACT’s open armed acceptance of anyone who will vote ACT is their biggest plus.
It is a weakness in our system which, more than in any other ‘main’ party, exposes Aotearoa/ NZ to the possibility of foreign interference in our 2020 election. This article shows how it happens: NZ Needs to be On Guard Against Foreign Interference in Election
https://www.top.org.nz/policy
Yes, there really is a party with a comprehensive policy.
+1. The Greens seem to reserve a special level of disdain for TOP, dont they?
Because TOP lifted a lot of policy from the Greens.
BOMBER (Quote): “I’ve voted Green my entire adult life and believe passionately that the climate crisis is an existential threat and that social justice matters”
Genuine social justice (as advocated by the Left for many decades) and the grossly distorted version (upper-case: Social Justice™) systematically weaponized by a Woke segment of the Middle-to-Upper-Middle-Class for their own empowerment = are two entirely different phenomena.
Don’t believe the hype. We [the left] can easily lose come October.
If the options look shit, people will just stay home.
I disagree with your assessment here because you are speaking as though the Greens as a party embrace the tactics you speak of. In actuality, the party itself takes the broad church approach. It is true that there are some pretty loud voices among the members and supporters who shout from their woke pulpits, but the majority in leadership roles are far more broad church in their approach.
There are many of us in the Greens who cringe about the most extreme among our ranks, and the things that they say and do that may cause the public to turn away. That is not saying it they are right or wrong, but that there is a way to deliver a point, and a way not to and that line can be crossed at times.
Still, you speak about the Greens as though it is the official party line from the top; when in fact these issues cause divisions within the Greens because they are a broad church. I think you need to consider that!