Trump, DOGE + the Hard Right winning Germany – lessons for the Left
There is much to learn from the recent wins by Trump and the Hard right in Germany alongside the DOGE amputation of the State.
Voters are sick of public services that don’t work and infrastructure that is gridlocked in a inflationary cost of living crisis.
People are so close to connecting the dots…
…THAT is the frustration and anger that the Right are harvesting which is ludicrous because it is the Right Wings neoliberal economic agenda that causes these public services to crash in the first place…
…we are seeing this right now in New Zealand.
The lessons the Left need to learn from Trump, DOGE and Germany are:
1 – Don’t generate the culture war ammunition the Right use against us in the first place.
2 – The Right know exactly what they want to do when they gain power, where as the Left want to hold a hui, have a cuddle, do lots of singing and announce a billion diverse working groups to work towards a vegan consensus. We need to know exactly what we are doing and have to actually immediately attempt to secure it to provide material relief to working people.
3 – Let’s cut waste, but when I say waste, I’m not talking about cutting public servants or removing aid, I’m talking the actual obscene waste of corporate welfare that is used to prop up the neoliberal Corporate hegemony. It’s not the public servant working in underfunded services who are your enemy, it’s the Corporations and Wealthy who benefit from enormous tax breaks, loopholes and deregulation who we need to go after to cut waste.
Jon Stewart makes the case…
…voters are angry and frightened and hurting because the Cost of Living crisis sparked by Covid inflation reminded everyone how economically vulnerable they are. The Right have underfunded the state so that public services collapse and they can swoop in and take what’s left over to set up monopolies they control.
Trump’s victory at manipulating culture war resentment demands the Left step back and consider positive populism to counter the pull of the Right’s negative populism.
Populism vs Authoritarian political currents have been exposed in last years IPSOS poll…
New Zealand broken and in decline – new survey
A global wave of disillusionment and disenfranchisement has not spared New Zealand, with a majority of respondents to a survey here agreeing that New Zealand society is broken and the country is in decline.
Ipsos New Zealand asked 1001 Kiwis about their hopes for the future and their views of the state of the nation in the final week of February. The results, exclusively obtained by Newsroom, line up with the pollster’s findings from 28 countries overseas: People believe the economy is rigged to benefit the rich and powerful and traditional politicians aren’t doing anything about it.
Three in five respondents told Ipsos that New Zealand society was in decline and that the country is broken, aligning closely with results from overseas. This is the first time New Zealand has been included in this survey, which Ipsos has run elsewhere five times since 2016.
Paul Spoonley, the former director of centre of research excellence He Whenua Taurikura, said the findings align with the long-running Edelman Trust Barometer study, which doesn’t include New Zealand.
“What they’re recording internationally, which is repeated in this Ipsos survey, is a very rapid decline in trust, particularly in governments and in experts, and a decline in the level of social cohesion internationally,” he said.
…the manner in which social media school chambers have radicalised voters into Qanon militia speaks to a deeper wound and is reminiscent of the way global Muslim youth were radicalised in the 1990s and 2000s thanks to online Jihadist recruitment videos.
Citizens should feel angry and cynical at a system that is rigged in favour of the rich!
The Left should lean into that populism!
We need to focus on how to combat this terrible racist, anti-worker, anti-Treaty, anti-renter, anti-beneficiary, anti-environment Government who are selling out the common good for the interests of their donor friends.
We have to re-establish the egalitarian mission by promoting policy that directly challenges the capitalist status quo in meaningful ways.
Without vision, the Left is lost.
There are 4 magical pillars of the NZ economic ‘success’
1 – Stealing Indigenous land and never paying back the full value.
2 – Selling basic milk powder to China
3 – Selling each other houses and pretending that makes us rich.
4 – Addiction to a low wage economy.
The migration exploitation rules are garbage because NZ loves exploiting migrant labour!
We are addicted to it.
We say locals are too lazy for these jobs when really what we say is locals won’t allow themselves to be exploited as easily as migrant workers.
There is of course a solution here.
Universals Union membership for every migrant worker crossing the border.
That way domestic workers know they are not competing against exploited labour.
That way migrant labour can’t be exploited without the Union stepping.
That way the migrant worker and domestic worker are all protected by the solidarity of the Union.
We don’t want a solution to exploited labour, that’s why Universal Union Membership for migrant workers is ignored and non-solutions like this are promoted.
This Wednesday the CTU are holding hui all over the country to speak out against this Governments attack on worker rights.
We need economic resilience, we need community resilience, we need radical reform to strengthen sustainability.
We need more Left Universalism.
We need to lift the tax yoke off working people, beneficiaries and the middle classes and we need to put it on the Banks, the Corporations, the Billionaires and the mega wealthy.
We need more Democratic Infrastructure, not less!
Why do we need these things?
Because the climate is shutting down and we face a bleak future where Billions will suffer and die thanks to catastrophic climate change.
This change will be forced upon us whether we like it or not.
This demands more connections, more bonds that bind us together to emotionally, socially, economically and politically to survive what is coming.
Māori communalism is going to teach us a lot.
Here are some thoughts on what the Left should be considering:
The Right to Strike: A 10 day nation wide national strike would achieve more for working people than a dozen elections. We don’t have the right to strike in this country for God’s sakes, stand on your feet or live on your knees!
Iwi backed new Supermarket: Bring in a 3rd player into the supermarket duopoly that is Iwi backed with a focus on cheap prices for consumers, best prices for producers and high wages and work conditions for workers. Take 30% of the Supermarket Industry by force (allowed under the Commerce Commission powers) and use this as the backbone for a new food security system.
Mārae Civil Defence: Use Marae as the backbone of Civil Defence throughout NZ with resources based there alongside new building grants to strengthen those Marae.
Ministry of Green Works: We need to be able to build our own sustainable infrastructure, we need social housing builds and we need vast upgrading of the existing infrastructure to be adaptable to climate change.
New Mental Health First Responders: A whole new branch of first responders to deal specifically with mental health issues to talk people down and seek help rather than calling then Police and arresting people.
Artist Benefit: As part of a degrowth Capitalism model, pay Artists to make public art, use that art as a means to deal with the wondrous grief caused by the destruction of the planet.
Māori Parliament: An indigenous Parliament that amplifies Māori political voices.
Universal Student Union: Allow Student Unions to be the incubators for tomorrows politicians and stop students simply being cash cows for corporate education.
Universal Migrant Union: Stop migrant worker exploitation with universal student membership.
Retirement Village Unions: These scumbag retirement villages abuse their elderly and sick clients, universal Retirement Village Unions would stop them being exploited.
Pensioner Unions: Give our elderly a voice!
Sugar Tax to fund free dental.
Financial Transaction Tax to target speculators
Free Public Transport to lower emissions and make an impact on the wallets of the poor.
Wealth Tax aimed at the super wealthy
Inheritance Tax only realised after death
First $20 000 tax free for everyone
Lower GST to 10% to take the tax burden off the poor
Nationalise Early Childhood Education to lower the cost for working mothers and fathers
Without vision the Left is dead.
Solidarity Comrades.
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The Left now unfortunately supports war more than the Right does. This is their primary downfall – especially in war torn Europe – on top of their refusal to focus on economics, the bread and butter of the Left. Basically, politicians that primarily represent the people have long since left European politics.