TDB Summer Election Special: Can The Internet Party get 5%? Really?
There’s a lot of talk, mainly from Kim Dotcom, that he’s going to restart the Internet Party. As someone who was in the engine room of the last attempt, I think the idea that the Internet Party could get 5% in 2017 seems ludicrous in the extreme.
I like Kim, he’s actually quite sweet and hyper-intelligent but he was badly let down by those who were advising him. He has no idealogical compass and he doesn’t get why some things just won’t work. I remember sitting in on some of the meetings and the absurd stupidity that was being given to him as advice was terrifying.
The Internet Party needed MANA in 2014 because there was no chance they could cross the 5% threshold on their own, that is still their problem in 2017.
If only Kim had heeded my advice for the Moment of Truth and had explained at the very beginning of that meeting that he wasn’t going to reveal the evidence that proved Key knew about him before Key had claimed because what he was about to reveal was far more important. Kim could have headed off the mainstream media bullshit that refused point blank to look at the evidence from Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Glenn Greenwald. I will never forget the press meeting after the Moment of Truth and the hatred that screwed up Simon Wilson’s face as he barked and yelled at Glenn Greenwald, an investigative journalist many levels higher than Simon, because they had dared upset the mainstream media order of things.
The people who advised Kim were great at selling products and parties, but they had zero ability at politics. That’s why Internet-MANA failed. Kim’s advisors needed to understand from the beginning that Labour, NZ First, Maori Party and National would all gang up on Hone to kill off any actual progressive force from entering Parliament and they needed to counter that by moving Kim off stage and allowing Laila and Hone to be the public face.
That never happened and Kim become a Bond villain caricature that the NZ mainstream media feasted upon and propagated like hungry malicious maggots.
The mainstream corporate media still refuse to this day to look at what Snowden, Assange and Greenwald proved and National have gotten away with mass surveillance that connects directly to the bloody NSA.
Mistakes of the past don’t look like they will be learnt if Kim attempts to restart the Internet Party, however Kim still has a role to play in NZ politics. His ongoing legal case against America, his claim that 2 terabytes of information have been taken from the National Party and his claim that Wikileaks has the missing Clinton emails all make him someone at the centre of leaks that mean he should never be ruled out.
But the Internet Party crossing the 5% threshold? ACT and United Future have a better chance of doing that before the Internet Party.
Kim Dot Com’s chances all revolve around…
Why did Key resign?
If Hilary had got in then the lawsuit against KDC would probably be kept alive but the Repubs (the oil industry party) won’t be interested in keeping alive the Dem’s (the movie industry/finance party) case. A win for the Repub govt would be a win for the Dems and the Repubs are seedy enough not to want any win for the Dems no matter what.
So if Key lost the backing of the Americans over the KDC case then he was going to come out looking pretty small and impotent and KDC was going to come out of it looking pretty righteous. And if it happened at the right moment who knows what could happen.
Yea, there are a lot of ifs so only time will tell how many ifs come true…
(And perhaps KDC is smart enough to learn from experience…)
No.
I’m with you Martyn,
We need super clever folks now inside government as most MP’s are “hollow logs” and ineffective to rout this evil junta that permeated our lives and controls us like lab rats.
If Kim can give us our liberty freedom and democracy back I’m all for it as we need to rid the evil next year.
It’s not all about winning. Democracy is participative, and Kim Dotcom has paid his dues; he’s entitled to play. Far more than Suddenly Seymour or Smoking Toddler Barclay. Or Bill & DongHwa Liu for that matter – the real foreign criminals perverting our political system. Of course nothing truthful will get past someone as thick as Patrick Gower, whose professional failures hold him up for ridicule and write his epitaph.
I like Dotcom and think he is just a giant ball of highly intelligent energy and creativity bouncing around. Agree he was probably preyed on by advisers and made mistakes – who doesn’t?
I know lots of people in IT and there is a percentage of them that are very like Dotcom, manic coupled with a childlike naivety. Those people can easily be manipulated and get into trouble and they sort of have to be treated in the same way as someone who suffers from depression or bi polar disorder.
Good on him for taking on the government – someone has to have the courage.
The group think against Dotcom was manufactured by dirty politics and he never deserved it.
Dotcom is the sort of immigrant we need in NZ, (not in politics) but in entrepreneurship to create the new digital economy here. The guy has genius qualities so of course the government wants to get rid of him. They just want people buying farms and houses and sucking off the welfare system.
Good luck to Dotcom. I don’t think he should resurrect the Internet party but think if he did then they would be more popular than ACT or United Future and a lot more meaningful. Instead let him stay as an IT professional and entrepreneur and build up jobs in this country.
+100
“He has no idealogical compass and he doesn’t get why some things just won’t work. I remember sitting in on some of the meetings and the absurd stupidity that was being given to him as advice was terrifying.”
This is what I think, having only observed the guy and the efforts made a few years ago.
He may be smart at operating an innovative IT business on the margins of legality, but with many smart business operators, they often have little sense for what politics is all about, and what political movements need to do.
Running a business is rather different to running a country, and even persons wanting to lead a small party, they need to at least understand politics 101 to have any slim chance to get any votes.
That is why I am equally scared about Donald Trump becoming President of the most powerful country on the planet very soon. The man is living in his own bubble, same as Kim Dotcom. They have many flatterers around them, and desperate hangers ons, all wanting to get a bit of the power and limelight. They will give such people all kinds of poor advice, being rather stuff those people may “like” to hear, than what they need to hear.
IP is a goner, before even considering running again. The MSM has dug them a deep grave years ago, and no zombie will come climbing out of that hole now.
And any association with the name Dotcom is now like poison, it will kill off any chances, for sure, forget it, please.
When you say there is a lot of talk from Kim Dotcom about his possibly entering into the elections later this year, what exactly are you talking about? His two tweets referring to it?
To be fair Gareth Morgan thinks TOP can reach 5% and they’re not even significantly polling yet, so…