A Shadow Across The Sun: A key factor driving the New Zealand electorate’s probable flight to the right in 2017 will be the profound and ideologically toxic influence of Donald Trump’s presidency.
THE POLITICAL CONSENSUS, at the beginning of 2017 – election
year – is that the National-led Government will hold on to power. Not in its
own right, as might have happened had John Key led them into battle, but with
sufficient parliamentary support to govern comfortably. The identity and
character of National’s support will likely prove the most intriguing electoral
story of the year. The most significant political event of 2017, however, could
well be the collapse of the Labour Party and the emergence of the Greens as New
Zealand’s leading party of the centre-left.
A key factor driving the New Zealand electorate’s flight to the
right will be the profound and ideologically toxic influence of Donald Trump’s
presidency. Nobel economics laureate, Paul Krugman, predicts a global trade
war, and the prestigious Foreign Policy
magazine is filled with disquieting articles foreshadowing an ominous deterioration
in the relationship between the USA and China.
If either of these predictions come to pass, then the
consequences for the New Zealand economy will be extremely serious. Both the
Chinese and the American governments will expect their “friends” to stand by
them in any test of geopolitical strength. Initially, Foreign Minister Murray
McCully will strive to retain the good will of both this country’s leading
export market and its principal defence guarantor. But, if push comes to
shove, he will come under enormous pressure from both Washington and Canberra
to declare for the “auld alliance”. The Foreign Minister may conclude that he
has no choice but to recommend to Prime Minister Bill English that we let go of
China’s hand – with all that portends for New Zealand’s primary industries.
It’s a scenario which can only make the already strong
electoral challenge of NZ First even stronger. The provinces will suffer most
if the NZ-China economic connection falters and the voters most affected:
farmers and the agricultural servicing sector; will be looking for someone to
blame. Inevitably, the government will be criticised, but by far the largest
share of the blame will be directed towards the government of the Chinese
people. This rapidly-developing, racially-charged, crisis will be Winston
Peters’ opportunity.
In a neat division of political labour, NZ First will lead
the attack on China while, publicly, National condemns (but not too loudly)
Peters’ racially-charged rhetoric. Meanwhile, privately, the conservative
supporters of both parties will be encouraged to recognise the inherent
electoral synergies of the unfolding crisis. As the countdown to the election
shortens, the prospect of a National-NZ First coalition government will begin
to acquire the aura of inevitability.
Amplifying the conservative message among the Maori
electorate, the Maori Party will cast the Chinese as a second-wave of
colonisers threatening not only tino
rangatiratanga but also Pakeha sovereignty. Iwi corporations will be portrayed
as the foundation stones of Aotearoa/New Zealand’s economic independence. The
incipient government of the centre-right will thus be presented as a
National-NZ First-Maori Party alliance.
The turmoil created by the Trump Administration will
similarly throw into sharp relief the serious disjunction between the beliefs
of the Labour Party and its electoral base. Even if Andrew Little and his
advisors were of a mind to join with Peters in attacking China, the reflexive
anti-Americanism of his caucus and Labour’s wider membership would drive the
party inexorably towards their enemy’s enemy. Immediately, what was left of Labour’s
support among “Waitakere Men” would decamp for the Sinophobic right.
The reverse manoeuvre: in which Little prevails upon caucus
and party to follow National, NZ First and the Maori Party into Trumpism and
Sinophobia; would only drive Labour’s younger, more progressive, voters towards
the Greens. The classic Labour solution – trying to have a bob each way – risks
losing both the conservative and the progressive components of its
electoral base.
The extreme-nationalist complexion of the Trump
Administration and its geopolitical focus on the burgeoning power of China can
only hasten the disintegration of Labour’s electoral position. The party’s
embrace of globalisation and free-market ideas in the 1980s, by hollowing-out
the traditional working-class communities from which it drew its most
consistent support, made Labour ever more dependent on the support of
well-educated middle-class baby-boomers. But, as these voters have aged, their
progressive instincts have shrivelled. Increasingly, the banners of the left
are being carried by younger voters – the Chloe Swarbrick generation.
It is, however, highly doubtful that sufficient young people
will participate in the 2017 general election to significantly offset the
emotionally powerful appeal of an unabashedly nationalistic, Sinophobic and
pro-American coalition of National, NZ First and the Maori Party. Neither
conservative fish, nor progressive fowl, Labour is likely to see its party vote
plummet into the teens – and with it any hope of reclaiming major party status.
The baton of progressive politics will pass to the Greens. Real political power,
however, will remain with the National Party and its allies.
This essay was
originally published in The Press of
Tuesday, 3 January 2017.
37 comments:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/31/not-game-over-austria-stopped-rightwing-populism-election
This seems to suggest that you can actually energise people to vote. It also seems to suggest that people don't necessarily want to vote for extremists. It takes people on the ground and a lot of hard work, which Labour doesn't seem to have at the moment. Well people on the ground anyway. I've lived in the same house for thirty-five years. Once have I been canvassed by phone, once by someone knocking on my door. Not a great record. And all right, it's a reasonably safe labour seat or has been, but it's the party vote that counts right?
Hi Chris Happy New Year a All
I don't see Trump's addressing his problems with China as requiring any constraints on us to align more closely with one or other. His issue is with a perfectly real imbalance of trade to the advantage of China ,that she has enjoyed and exploited for the last 3 or 4 decades , being allowed to trade freely while controlling their currency's exchange rate while the rest of the world is allowing theirs to float. We have not suffered so much because China buys so much from us, but they don't buy much proportionally from the U S, while they sell enormous quantities to them . Sooner or later U S is going to have to do something about it whoever is President.
This has no need to imply any military aggression, and I am not aware of Trump having said anything to suggest any more aggressive a military stance toward China than the previous administration, in fact quite the reverse. And without a military confrontational component of U S / China relations I don't see why it need interfere with our relations with either directly. Indirectly though, the massive trade imbalance that China has been enjoying with U S has undoubtably put her in the position to be able to pay great prices for all the dairy products and logs we can produce, and when Trump's protectionist policies start to kick in China is going to feel the pinch, and so in turn will we.
I would like to think that the interests of the nation and the present population of my country could be discussed and debated without any and every policy idea that might enhance those interests in dealing with the rest of the world did not have to be construed as racism and bigotry. I don't want N Z to have to be responsible for the welfare of the entire world or else confess to being racist.
So given I doubt the need to choose an alignment, it follows that I doubt the resulting sequences too. I doubt much advance in Green support , or much drop in Labour's , it's nearly all a default vote now anyway and there's nothing any more appealing on the horizon unfortunately.
Cheers David J S
There will need to be a new social democratic party if that happens. Im talking about a real, straightforward, mixed economy sdp. The greens are filled with too many flakes and many don't understand what it means to be of the reformist left - that is to advocate socialist policies that are workable in a market economy.
Labour still advocate such policies.
If their is no soc dem party left that could conceivably lead a future government we are in trouble.
The Austrian election is not a triumph for liberals: far-Right European populism is here to stay
The changing times are perhaps reflected in one point of comparison. In 2002, the far right Jean-Marie Le Pen shocked the world after taking 18 per cent of the vote in the first round of the presidential election in France. But among those on the left the 46 per cent won by Norbert Hofer, an ally of the Le Pen family, has been framed as some kind of success for liberalism .
In Austria and many other Western democracies, the cultural backlash against the so-called "New Left" and liberal values that spread throughout the West in the 1960s and 1970s began long before the onset of the Great Recession and the refugee crisis. It has been rooted in a coalition of blue collar and lower middle class workers, mainly white men, as well as older social conservatives, all of whom firmly oppose liberalism’s enthusiasm for open borders, global markets and relaxed social norms. Feeling as though their traditional values were under threat, from the late 1970s onward these voters began to turn in growing numbers to more radical parties that had recognized there was a growing market for calls to push back against the excesses of liberalism and glottalization.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/05/austrian-election-not-triumph-liberals-far-right-european-populism/
"Indirectly though, the massive trade imbalance that China has been enjoying with U S "
The USA seems to owe China a shit-ton of money. I'm not quite sure if this means that China owns the US, or the US owns China. :)
John Maynard Keynes
“I sympathize therefore, with those who would minimize, rather than with those who would maximize, economic entanglement between nations. Ideas, knowledge, art, hospitality, travel, these are the things which should of their nature be international. But let goods be homespun whenever it is reasonably and conveniently possible. And above all, let finance be primarily national.”
http://prntly.com/2016/03/11/economists-trumps-trade-and-tariff-plan-the-only-way-to-save-us-manufacturing/
I wouldn't be too worried about gloom and doom predictions Chris. One thing we have learnt over the last 6 months or so is that shrieks of doom from the losing left are as empty as they are loud.
After the Brexit vote the UK economy was going to crash - didn't happen.
After the Trump victory the sky was going to fall - didn't happen.
The latest screeching is about a trade war because.....oh Trump.....the devil incarnate....still not going to happen.
The left would do better to spend some time in looking at themselves as to why they have slipped screaming into irrelevancy than shaking in rage at every utterance of soon to be President Trump.
Maybe the new in-word will be post-pc.
Jimmie
I don't see any consensus suggesting National will hold onto power at all.National immediately lost 4.5% in the polls. Pure speculation. Lets wait until the silly season is over. Will the Grey Man, Bill English hold things together?
Here's a libertarian view on open borders
"if all the parcels of land in the whole world were privately owned, the solution to the so-called immigration problem would be evident. In fact, it might be more accurate to say that there would be no immigration problem in the first place. Everyone moving somewhere new would have to have the consent of the owner of that place."
When the state and its so-called public property enter the picture, though, things become murky, and it takes extra effort to uncover the proper libertarian position.
//
In order to make sense of all this and reach the appropriate libertarian conclusion, we have to look more closely at what public property really is and who, if anyone, can be said to be its true owner. Hans has devoted some of his own work to precisely this question. There are two positions we must reject: that public property is owned by the government, or that public property is unowned, and is therefore comparable to land in the state of nature, before individual property titles to particular parcels of land have been established.
Certainly we cannot say public property is owned by the government, since government may not legitimately own anything. Government acquires its property by force, usually via the intermediary of taxation. A libertarian cannot accept that kind of property acquisition as morally legitimate, since it involves the initiation of force (the extraction of tax dollars) on innocent people. Hence government’s pretended property titles are illegitimate.
But neither can we say that public property is unowned. Property in the possession of a thief is not unowned, even if at the moment it does not happen to be held by the rightful owner. The same goes for so-called public property. It was purchased and developed by means of money seized from the taxpayers. They are the true owners.
(This, incidentally, was the correct way to approach de-socialization in the former communist regimes of eastern Europe. All those industries were the property of the people who had been looted to build them, and those people should have received shares in proportion to their contribution, to the extent it could have been determined.)
In an anarcho-capitalist world, with all property privately owned, “immigration” would be up to each individual property owner to decide. Right now, on the other hand, immigration decisions are made by a central authority, with the wishes of property owners completely disregarded. The correct way to proceed, therefore, is to decentralize decision-making on immigration to the lowest possible level, so that we approach ever more closely the proper libertarian position, in which individual property owners consent to the various movements of peoples.
https://mises.org/library/open-borders-are-assault-private-property
The ownership of New Zealand and it's territorial assets (including spaciousness) by the people has been overlooked by the politicians (and media) it has been assumed that by voting for National, Labour or the Greens you are o.k with cultural and territorial dilution.
Oh, libertarianism raises its ugly head again. Libertarians seem to forget that just about everybody on earth has inherited land that was taken by force from someone else. I definitely want they Normans out of England. I want my land back. It's going to be difficult to prove obviously, but I lay claim to all of Leicestershire thank you very much.
I doubt Trump will start a trade war as it would impoverish his voters. There will be lots of noise and posing instead of real bite. We will do fine as we do not have to take sides and are utterly irrelevant to big power fights. We are irrelevant full-stop, as our pathetic and daft attempt to achieve just one tiny little squeak at the UN proved.
I agree that Key's well timed departure makes a National led government more likely to continue after the next election. a parting gift. But perhaps without the Maori Party, as NZF will likely be enough. Peters has many dislikes which totally define him as he has no positive policies really. He is an anti. Top of his hate list is probably the Greens closely followed by Maori radicals and even the milder version in the M Party. So I expect he will go with National on the condition they exclude the M Party. But who knows, as like Trump he probably doesn't even know what he will do next. He many now hate National more than anything, as they are so successful compared to him, and so swallow a dozen rats and do a deal with Labour/Green. That would last less than a year I reckon. It would very fall to his fragile ego.
Blogger Guerilla Surgeon said...
Oh, libertarianism raises its ugly head again. Libertarians seem to forget that just about everybody on earth has inherited land that was taken by force from someone else
....
So if no people have a right to sovereign territory it is over to the right people to provide leadership?
Still getting your info from scruffy little blogs I see JH.
"The website was described in an opinion piece by RedState, as having a standard method of writing stories: "[they] cut and paste text from stories about Donald Trump or Ted Cruz and then give them made up headlines, right off the National Equirer's editing room floor."
Frm here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prntly
Wikipedia is not a fully representative site but gives good info on many sites. It can be edited by others.
Please get your info from reputable sources and not blogs JH, blogs are the opinion of the author and are not necessarily correct.
Trumpy is another P.T.Barnam style con man who's only claim to fame is being the host of a second-rate reality TV show. Not worth anywhere near what he claims - Forbes puts his wealth at about $400 million, a lot less than the $10 billion he claims.
Agreed GS.It's time the Ukraine was handed back to the Celts and the US handed back to the native Indians!
David Stone
Your notion of a continuum between the China policies of Obama and Trump does not bear examination.
When did Obama ever question the "One China" doctrine?
Meanwhile, the contrast between your oft-stated alarmism over the hapless Hillary and your Panglossian apologetics for Trump grows ever more absurd.
Wake up! Smell the coffee!
GS
You may want the Normans out of England.
If I was Welsh, I'd want the English out of Britannia(aka Cymru a Lloegr). And I'd certainly want the Scots out of Strathclyde.
Victor. Number of problems with that. I know there is some controversy about this, but the latest archaeological evidence suggests that the "English" were mostly in fact Celts who adopted Saxon customs. To replace all those Celts would have probably depopulated the whole of Scandinavia. I think that the genetic evidence tends to support this. And of course many of those "English" were invited over to help with local wars. :)
"So if no people have a right to sovereign territory it is over to the right people to provide leadership?"
No idea what you mean, but perhaps you should investigate the word humour? And the idea that libertarianism is hypocritical?
Bushbaptist.
This originally appeared on Robert Reich’s blog.
I finally found a Trump supporter — this morning when I went to buy coffee. (I noticed a Trump bumper sticker on his car.)
“Hi,” I said. “Noticed your Trump bumper sticker.”
“Yup,” he said, a bit defensively.
“I hope you don’t mind my asking, but I’m curious. Why are you supporting him?
“I know he’s a little bit much,” said the Trump supporter. “But he’s a successful businessman. And we need a successful businessman as president.”
“How do you know he’s a successful businessman?” I asked.“Because he’s made a fortune.”
“Has he really?” I asked.
“Of course. Forbes magazine says he’s worth four and a half billion.”
“That doesn’t mean he’s been a success,” I said.
“In my book it does,” said the Trump supporter.
“You know, in 1976, when Trump was just starting his career, he said he was worth about $200 million,” I said. “Most of that was from his father.”
“That just proves my point,” said the Trump supporter. “He turned that $200 million into four and a half billion. Brilliant man.“
“But if he had just put that $200 million into an index fund and reinvested the dividends, he’d be worth twelve billion today,” I said.
The Trump supporter went silent.
“And he got about $850 million in tax subsidies, just in New York alone,” I said.
More silence.
“He’s not a businessman,” I said. “He’s a con man. “Hope you enjoy your coffee.”
Hi Victor
Happy new year; I'm sure it will be an interesting one..
I look forward to discussing developments with you and all as Chris introduces them for us on Bowalley Road.
Cheers David J S
Jimmie
The process by which the UK will leave the EU has not even been triggered yet and Trump hasn't even been inaugurated.
But, already, the pound sterling has lost up to 20 percent of its value and Trump has severely antagonised China.
So imagine what it will be like when Brexit is triggered and Trump is in the Oval Office.
And, by the way, I don't write as a left-winger but as someone who's just ever so slightly left of centre.
I also suspect that it will be the Republicans who get rid of Trump, through impeachment before a GOP dominated congress. But I could be wrong.
Victor I think you might wish to investigate the "Asia pivot" which was Obama and Hillary Clintons attempt to militarise the South China Sea. From a regional perspective all rather alarming.
I dont go along with this early demonisation of Trump. All pure speculation, especially when the speculation is led by Wapo Clinton chearleaders like Krugman. I would suggest that we would be better to keep the eyes alert and the powder dry.
Your scenario Chris of Labour imploding is entirely plausible. The big bogey of alt-Right populism seems to me to be more a case of nature abhors a vacuum. The Left has deserted its post, left the field.
I read that GS. I do read Robert's Blog regularly. Very accurate.
As I have said before elsewhere, Trumpy has the mentality and the petulance of a 12 year old throwing tantrums. There are two ways of dealing with a tantrum; ignore it and carry on as usual or give him an damned good hard smack in the ear. Trumpy needs the latter!
Trumpy never expected to win the election, the whole idea was to get his name out there so he could con more people not actually win. He even set up an escape route at the end of his campaign, "the vote is rigged" "The Dems are pirating the votes" etc. He was caught by surprise.
The election was Slippery Hill's to lose and she did with aplomb. She smugly thought that she had in in the bag. She snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
Further GS, the Celts in Britannia were first Romanised then Saxonised. Later Normanised (French Vikings).
When the Romans withdrew from there in about 400AD they handed it over to Voltagern who had no army to protect it. He bought an army of Saxons from Cyril of Pomerania (now south Poland) and took them back to Britain. They did an admirable job but Voltagern neglected to pay them and they revolted and set up their own little enclave around London that they named Western Saxony. The region still has a remnant of that in their names; Essex, Sussex and so on.
The Angles were a remnant of an earlier Mongolian group that migrated into Europe many centuries before then. They were very skilled with a bow and arrow and the Romans used them as mercenaries. Some settled in the south east in the area that still bears their name, East Anglia.
The Angles were different from the Saxons and Celts physically; short, dark-haired people with eyes that turned up at the outside edge and they have pointed ears. See the pics of Bjork, the icelandic singer or the Danish actress Rebecca Blumenthal both of whom have those characteristics. Compare those with pics of Diana who was a classic Saxon.
Here endeth the lesson!
"I dont go along with this early demonisation of Trump."
Then perhaps you should look at his appointments in more detail. There is plenty of information out there about them. A pretty corrupt lot if you ask me, in keeping with his general persuasion. And Trump must be one of the few presidents to break almost all of his campaign promises before he's been inaugurated. So I've got no huge problem with early demonisation.
GS
Yes, you're right about many 'Anglo-Saxons' being 'Celts'. But, then, it's also true that most 'Celts' and hence many (perhaps most)'Anglo-Saxons' are descended from people who'd lived in 'The Islands' since long before the (probably Celtic-speaking) invaders arrived from central Europe, around half way through the last millennium BCE (if my memory serves me right).
And, yes, I agree that, these days, archeologists, tend to favour the migration of very small groups and cultural transfusion/dominance for changes in the shapes of pots,pans and sword hilts, rather than wholesale migration, a view which seems to be underscored by the fast developing field of genetics.
But, by the same token, how much of Leicestershire can you legitimately claim back from the 'Normans', when some of them might actually be as 'Saxon' or as 'Celtic' as you?
OK we know that a large part of England is still legally owned by the direct descendants of guys in chain mail (some of them actually called Guy) who came over with the Conquerer. But much of it isn't, including, dare I say, large parts of Leicestershire.
BTW jh might be interested to know that one of the best things about Leicester (apart from the best football team in the universe other than Spurs) is the number, quality and variety of its Indian restaurants.
Nick J
Yes, of course,there were already tensions developing between China and the US.
That's all the more reason not to get up China's nose with a rhetorical rejection of the very principle which, from Beijing's perspective, makes any semblence of cordial relations possible.
I should add that,to my mind, it's open to question whether the "Pivot to Asia" is primarily to blame for negatives in the current political relationship between the US and China or whether these are more a result of China's bid to resurrect its one time regional dominance, a trend that's certainly intensified under Xi Jinping's leadership.
But, either way, questioning the 'One China' policy will undoubtedly be seen by Beijing as a very unfriendly act. It's impossible to imagine Obama, or just about any other experienced US politician, making this mistake.
Nick J
"The big bogey of alt-Right populism seems to me to be more a case of nature abhors a vacuum."
To a great extent, I agree with you. Certainly, there was no inevitability about the events of the last year.
But, now it's out of its bottle, this toxic brew won't go back in all that easily. So we can't ignore its dangerous and corrosive nature.
And pretending it's not dangerous and corrosive will only help it spread.
Victor. Ah.... Leicester City. I wish my dad had lived long enough to see them win the championship. Another thing in their favour was that they were one of the few if not the only team to run talent schools for young Asian players. And when I am rightfully installed as its Eorl I will royally reward them for it.:) (Sorry, been watching The Last Kingdom.)
Do
Pākehā even qualify as an ethnic grouping? Ethnicity, sociologically understood,
speaks to shared memory and history, commonality of customs, language, religion
and world view (Smith 1987). Yet those labelled Pākehā have Scots, Irish, English,
Welsh, Croatian, Dutch and other ancestry, and all of the cultural and historical
differences that this entails. As arguably the foremost theorist of Pākehā ethnicity
has said of his own family: ‘We were New Zealanders, but Irish New Zealanders.
Although statistics may have lumped us among the almost ninety percent of the
population descended from the European migration, we did not feel like members of
a majority’ (King (1985:29). Those so lumped now occupy the same terrain and they
have the same skin colour. But beyond phenotype and physical location, what do
they share? David Pearson (1989) claims that Pākehā fall short of an actual ethnic
group, occupying the more nebulous position of ethnic category.
.....
So now the academic has critiqued us we are shown up as unqualified to decide who we are. In which case people who know best can decide for us. Things like national identity should be managed by experts and borders because "we can solve many of the world's problems that way". We are Nurse Ratchet and the people are the inmates of a psychiatric institution.
Bush Baptist. I quoted Herman Daly
http://steadystate.org/herman-daly/
"‘We were New Zealanders, but Irish New Zealanders.
Although statistics may have lumped us among the almost ninety percent of the
population descended from the European migration, we did not feel like members of
a majority’ (King (1985:29). "
Probably because for much of the nineteenth and part of the twentieth century the Irish – particularly Catholic Irish – were considered to be inferior beings. That's what always amuses me about people who denigrate Maori, PI people, Asians and the like. Many of them, a hundred years ago would have been considered subhuman. But on the other hand, as I keep saying to those idiots who claim they can't use the word "gay" any more, you can use words to mean whatever you want to. So if you want to use the word gay to mean happy, just do it. And no one is stopping you from deciding who you are. However nebulous.
GS
Just a tip before you become Eorl or Oerl or whatever.
Avoid shield walls on hills. It doesn't always work.
‘Ethnic group’ jh is pretty meaningless to me. Cultural group is better. Pakeha can at its widest mean all of us, ie NZers.
As culture is way more real and significant than race or ethnicity (whatever that is) then it should really be the only way to group people, if you must do it at all.
And jh that is exactly what your beef with immigration is about eh? You don't want our culture diluted, altered, let alone destroyed by alien cultures ‘invading’. Who does?
You are in the majority in every land I expect. Even the places which have horrible backward oppressive cultures cling to them. That is human nature.
Those of you who think yourselves Celts or whatever, racially, may be similarly deluded about race cf culture. That pioneer Sikes was it, who was among the first to study the genes of peoples, greatly disappointed the Irish, Welsh and Scots I have read. He found that in fact the British & Irish peoples are actually very similar racially with little evidence of Celtic or Norman genes. Those invaders obviously found the locals too ugly or primitive to breed with!
Culturally though they had a large impact.
He found the Brits were not Celts or Normans or Saxons very much, but mostly descended from people of the Basque region. These people walked across the Channel when it had a land bridge about 12,000 years ago I think he found.
GS
I forgot to mention Red Leicester Cheese, which I'd swap Double Gloucester for any day.
When you're Eorl, can I be your cheese-taster?
If you want to understand the popularity of Donald Trump it can be found in his refusal to shake Merkel's hand.
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