Tuesday 15 September 2020

The Left's Lost Allies.

Rebels In A Wrong Cause: The truly frightening thing about Jami-Lee Ross’s and Billy Te Kahika’s success in persuading thousands of New Zealanders that Covid-19 is just another trick, just another way of stealing away their power, is realising just how many of them once marched at the Left’s side. Before recoiling in horror at where so many of their fellow citizens have ended up, and what they have found there, perhaps “progressive” New Zealanders should ask themselves how, and why, their former allies became so lost.

 

LET’S BE HONEST, last Saturday’s Advance NZ rally in Aotea Square was bloody impressive. If the Left had turned out a crowd that large they would have claimed at least 5,000 participants. Now, the last time I remember seeing that sort of number in the Square was when the CTU summoned its affiliates in support of a concerted national push for higher wages. It was a very well organised affair, with workers bussed-in from all over Auckland. By contrast, Jami-Lee Ross and Billy Te Kahika turned out 5,000+ of their people on the strength of not much more than a summons via Facebook and Instagram. It is now vitally important for the Left to understand what it is looking at: a large and potentially dangerous mass movement of the Right.

Such a thing has not been seen in New Zealand for a very long time. Perhaps the closest historical parallel is “Rob’s Mob”. This, too, was a populist phenomenon, whipped-up on the basis of lies and misinformation by an accomplished political demagogue. The huge difference, of course, is that “Rob’s Mob” was under the firm control and direction of the National Party and its leader, Robert Muldoon. It was a movement created out of whole cloth to challenge the Labour Party’s confident assumption that it remained the party of the people.

With the able assistance of the privately-owned news media – especially the right-wing tabloid “Truth” – conservative working-class voters were encouraged to look upon “Rob” Muldoon as their champion against the pointy-headed intellectuals and communists who were accused of taking-over the Labour Party. The result was a neat anticipation, in reverse, of what has happened with Jacinda. A substantial chunk of working-class voters were drawn across the political divide and into the camp of their traditional enemy. National mustered these defectors with the skill of a heading-dog. The crowds turning-out to Muldoon’s rallies numbered in the thousands. New Zealand had its own Trump when the man himself was still working for his dad!

What we’re looking at in the case of Jami-Lee Ross and Billy Te Kahika, however, is something quite distinct, ideologically and organisationally, from Rob’s Mob. Advance NZ and the Public Party are not under the control of any coherent political group. They are being mobilised by Te Kahika only in the sense that he is drawing together the loose threads of far-Right conspiracism – most them traceable back to Alt-Right social media platforms in the United States – and weaving them into a more-or-less coherent narrative of resistance to Jacinda Ardern’s government.

Once again, the historical parallels are uncanny. In 1974-75, the National Party was offered assistance (at whose instigation remains unclear) from Hanna Barbera – a studio dedicated to producing animated cartoon series for American television. The resulting animated sequences, cleverly embedded in National’s television advertising, burst upon the 1975 election campaign like a thunderclap. Their impact, especially the infamous “Dancing Cossacks” sequence, was devastating. Labour had nothing even remotely comparable with which to answer National’s devastating attack.

Forty-five years later, skilfully constructed media messages are, once again, making a forceful impression on the consciousness of groups who, historically, have identified strongly with the Labour Party. Sourced from the United States, these messages are not, like Hanna Barbera’s cartoons, the product of a shadowy collaboration between the National Party and American “friends” with a mutual interest in ridding New Zealand of a radical social-democratic government. Indeed, it is precisely against such “Deep State” machinations that the political messages of 2020 are directed.

The authors and repeaters of these conspiracy theories have no more interest in restoring the conventional Right to power than keeping the conventional Left in office. Their purpose is to disrupt the status-quo fundamentally: to bring the whole rotten edifice of elite power crashing down upon the heads of its corrupt political mis-leaders. Their loyalty is only to the Disrupter-in-Chief in the White House. But if, by helping Trump, they can also assist his New Zealand imitators and disciples, then where’s the harm?

Overlaying all these hymns of fear and loathing is, of course, the global Covid-19 Pandemic. Without the Pandemic, the febrile environment in which conspiracy theories can take root and thrive would – at least in New Zealand’s case – be lacking.

Interestingly, the formation of “Rob’s Mob”, and the populist campaign (National’s slogan in 1975 was “New Zealand the way YOU want it.”) which they did so much to propel forward, was enormously assisted by the fear and uncertainty created by the 1973 Oil Crisis. Massive increases in the price of crude oil had destabilised the hitherto booming economies of the Western powers. Ordinary people sensed that the whole post-war era of security and prosperity was coming to an end. Muldoon played upon these anxieties “like a piano”.

Now, many on the left will argue that Advance NZ’s 5,000 protesters pale into insignificance when compared to the 30,000 people who turned out against the TPPA, or the 50,000 who protested against the global lack of progress against Climate Change. This is true. Also true, however, is that a large number of the Maori who took part in the TPPA protest, seeing the free-trade agreement as yet another attempt to steal away of their power, were also at Saturday’s protest. Likewise, many of those who joined the climate change protests out of frustration at the lack of action from a prime minister who had promised to make the issue her generation’s “nuclear-free moment”. After so many broken promises – so many betrayals – it takes surprisingly little to convince people that the powers-that-be cannot be trusted. That all politicians lie.

The truly frightening thing about Jami-Lee Ross’s and Billy Te Kahika’s success in persuading thousands of New Zealanders that Covid-19 is just another trick, just another way of stealing away their power, is realising just how many of them once marched at the Left’s side. Before recoiling in horror at where so many of their fellow citizens have ended up, and what they have found there, perhaps “progressive” New Zealanders should ask themselves how, and why, their former allies became so lost.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Tuesday, 15 September 2020.

24 comments:

Kimbo said...

The truly frightening thing about Jami-Lee Ross’s and Billy Te Kahika’s success in persuading thousands of New Zealanders that Covid-19 is just another trick, just another way of stealing away their power, is realising just how many of them once marched at the Left’s side. Before recoiling in horror at where so many of their fellow citizens have ended up, and what they have found there, perhaps “progressive” New Zealanders should ask themselves how, and why, their former allies became so lost.

Er, because the traditional tribal left already conducts itself like an ideological quasi-religious plot theory anyway.

For example, your mention of Muldoon and the inference there were allegedly CIA funding for those cartoons in 1975, which only played on about 5 occasions during that 1975 campaign. Be it saints like MJ Savage, and Norman Kirk, apostates like Roger Douglas and Richard Prebble, or dark sinsiter devilish forces like capitalism, globalism and greedy big oil profiting off climate change, the left propagates and perpetuates itself as a religious conspiracy.

Hence when another voice arises...

Guerilla Surgeon said...

A cogent comment I've just stolen from one of my other blogs. Thanks Makoto :).

"Lies fit on bumper stickers. They fit in an elevator pitch. They sound truthy and you can shout them quickly and confidently.
Truth.. that takes time. It takes reason and nuance and even then, admits it might get things wrong from time to time. Which liars pounce on to denounce truth even after it does its best."

Trev1 said...

"Progressives" need to take a good look in the mirror Chris. Their intolerant "wokism" and the pc censorship that dominates our institutions and media is provoking an equally extreme reaction. "Clamp your hand over someone’s mouth every time they speak, and what finally emerges is a howl of rage." As an advocate for Free Speech you will understand the crucial importance of open debate to a stable democracy. Sadly however we are moving rapidly from a "free society" to a "fear society" as Sharansky might have put it.

Joe C said...

Not 5,000. Between one and one and a half thousand.

greywarbler said...

Trev1 You comment applies more to the UK and the madness of the Kings of BBC.
And Kimbo I can't decide whether you have a heightened sensitivity that you can't differentiate, see the nuances, or have a brutalised one where the first fault that you perceive means the rubbish tip for that entity.

I simply thought, rabble rouser, saying to cuzzies around the place, want a day out in Auckland. Possibly it's that and all the things you mention Chris. But there are numerous small parties trying to get traction whenever there is contention. Isn't this just one of them. But something that I feel in my bones is that Maori are getting totally frustrated with the unbelievable continuance of bad treatment, the USA style of banging the brown people in prison in growing numbers. And the pursed-lip conservative christians whipping away babies, 'We have to spoil their lives in some pakeha-oriented 'home', which is supposed to be better than the Maori family spoiling their lives'. Obviously when viewed clearly the policy is a dud, and bound to create generations of hate and anger. And the professionals are rearing up like cobras and hissing about Maori being controlled because of Covid-19. That doesn't show joined-up thought; the decades of attempting to build a settled and respectful relationship between Maori and pakeha is being unwound, and I feel wounded that it is being so lightly set aside, so disrespectfully, and gestures about Te Reo are not sufficient to show good Government working respectfully and fruitfully with Maori. National putting Maori in leadership roles such as Jake Bazzett? is another placebo.

Anonymous said...

Frankly, the Left has absolutely nothing to fear from this. These nutters are just splitting the anti-Labour vote. Better they vote for Jamie Lee-Ross than National or ACT. Moreover, National knows full-well that 3/4 of the country hates these people. It can't overly court them without alienating the vast majority.

In short, this gives National headaches, not Labour.

Sam said...

mateee, comrade, brother, Joe. At any one time during any given hour of the day, there is a thousand people crossing fucken queen street on any given weekday. I believe in protesting. The right to protest should not be stalled. There is always an excuse not to continue with progressive forms and not to do it. So we will win by to it the best.

Kat said...


Song for the times.......
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ln7Vn_WKkWU&ab_channel=StealersWheel-Topic

Although I would substitute clowns/jokers with idiots/despots.

Tom Hunter said...

... with a mutual interest in ridding New Zealand of a radical social-democratic government.

Hang on. You've recently been bemoaning, in a number of articles, the colourless uselessness of the Labour Party leading this government when it comes to overhauling the Healthcare, Welfare and Tax systems of the nation.

Can't be both, no matter how exciting and incendiary a call to arms it reads.

Nick J said...

..... perhaps “progressive” New Zealanders should ask themselves how, and why, their former allies became so lost.

Good starter for 10. Perhaps we should ask who are the Left?

For lots of us old Labour types our party is a mere shell of the social democratic broadly Christian socialist / Fabian enterprise that shaped NZ from 1935 - 1984. The current centrist neolib lite Labour no longer reflects anything "socialist" except the delivery of a kind face of neoliberalism. We no longer belong.

Woke and PC don't fit into old Labour either, they are mere cults of sacred victimhood, the type that when called Marxism went around findng victims of oppression, real or not. Therefore oppressors had to be found as well, and killed (today its deplatforming). Can't for the life of me see that causes like transgender rights fit into Left or Right, neither side has a monopoly on human rights and common decency. To assign woke causes to the Left appears to drive the blue collar classes elsewhere, as demonstrated by the US Dems total wokeness and near total divorce from the "deplorables". For those old Labour types who are socially conservative, we can see their point.

So who is the centre that currently votes Labour (or Dem)? They comprise urban "white collar" managerial profession /skilled classes who are fluid in voting for whoever will "manage" better (to their benefit). They have time and inclination to liberal causes so long as they get to administer them and feel good... more self benefit. They don't however care about benefit levels or visceral realities faced by deplorables. That's today's "Left".

Interestingly Mussolini was originally a socialist, Nazi as an acronym included socialist and workers. Two Right wing regimes seized those the Left had deserted. Trump found Obamas core electorate, deserted by Hillary.

So who the hell are the Left?



John Hurley said...

I was thinking the other day that if Trump hadn't stood for POUS it would have been status quo as in Labour/National two sides of the same coin.

On Newshub nation David Cormack said "you don't do what the people want: you do what's right and the two don't necessarily mesh up". On 9th Floor RNZ Helen Clark gave an example of that in relation to the Tampa affair: "the polls were like 80% against" However the public go over it and (sometime later) we were up in the polls. There is a difference between acceptance and getting away with and that is(for example) a Brexit vote.

I commented to someone recently that the media has recently come out so hard and biased that they have removed their safety valve. The Christchurch Press is printed 6 days a week. About half those days have a SJW preacher such as Grant Shimmen, Donna Miles-Mojab, Lana Hart or young up-start like Henry Cook. If multi-culturalism was so good wouldn't it be self evident?
Meanwhile journalists and politicians are our "least trusted (according to a poll).

Chris Trotter said...

To: Tom Hunter.

The "radical social-democratic government" in whose removal the National Party and their American "friends" both had a strong interest was the government of Norman Kirk and Bill Rowling, Tom, not Jacinda Ardern!

I'm sorry if I failed to make that clear.

sumsuch said...

You say well. Devices are all very well and good but the heart is everything for the people.

sumsuch said...

I seem to be pious about 't'cause' compared to others. Yes, I'm conservative about that. But if we had the Welfare State now we'd be facing our challenges face on rather than this sideways crap that damns our young to Hell.

Kimbo said...

@ greywarbler

And Kimbo I can't decide whether you have a heightened sensitivity that you can't differentiate, see the nuances, or have a brutalised one where the first fault that you perceive means the rubbish tip for that entity.

I simply thought, rabble rouser, saying to cuzzies around the place, want a day out in Auckland...But something that I feel in my bones is that Maori are getting totally frustrated with the unbelievable continuance of bad treatment, the USA style of banging the brown people in prison in growing numbers.


I can't speak with any expertise on the reality or otherwise of what you "feel in your bones", but I do know that my observation was in response to Chris Trotter's accurate assessment that many of those who marched belong to groups and demographics the left considers its own. Hence his unease.

And I do discern that white middle and upper class well-educated progressives do have a tendency to presume to speak on behalf of the "cuzzies".

But what right wing voting household would ever have a portrait of, say, Keith Holyoake, Rob Muldoon or John Key on public display in their house?! Not so many traditional Labour households in time past with MJ Savage, Norman Kirk or Helen Clark. And when a Labour leader makes an announcement it will often be with the faces of the beatific ones on the wall behind them, like holy icons bestowing authority, blessings and continuity with the true faith.

As left wingers, including progressives are allegedly more +empathetic" than the cold, sober allegedly uncaring alternative, they practice their politics like a religion. Which means some are readily susceptible to being lured away by a competing faith using the same tactics of persuasion.

Tiger Mountain said...

Numbers matter, for most of my political life the cops and media have regularly misrepresented march/rally attendances. For instance in Queen St. if people are still leaving Customs St. when others have reached Aotea Sq. it is a sizeable march, depending on whether half of whole width of Queen St is used. Counting the rows from a high vantage point proved the NZ Herald and cops wrong most of the time. One time they were right–a 200 strong H Block march supporting Bobby Sands in the pouring rain, abused by bystanders all the way–we certainly wished for more people that time!

5000 is incorrect as various blog sites have pointed out. Using a rear view of crowd pic, “line by lined” rather than the cropped side view Chris has used, shows a generous 1350 including those off to the side.

But, there are certainly thousands of alienated, disenfranchised, exploited and oppressed, seeking anwsers to lifes problems that are looking at Billy TK on Facebook. 35 years of Parliamentary neoliberal consensus and the run down of collectivism and public participation has seen to that.

Trotsky said...

Radical social-democratic government, dosn't sound like anything Ive seen in the last 4 decades. Certainly the only difference between Jacinda/Labour and JohnKey/National is the gender of the leaders, which is fine - thats what the electorate wants.

Good news is Jamie Lee Ross and Billy TK will provide much needed humour into the election campaign (Winston is a burnt out husk to the amusing nutter slot is available), before fizzling back into oblivion to join the the various other quacks - Honi Harawiria, Colin Craig, Graeme Capill and possible the antivax/crystal gazing Green Party.

Flaneuse said...

You make some interesting and astute points, Chris, but according to one person's quite careful method of counting the crowd at the protest, it came in around 1300.

Flaneuse said...

Thinking further on all of this and after reading the comments, what also appears to be missing here is the huge influence of actual conspiracy theories on normally fairly level-headed people, who just do not understand or believe in science. I have dear friends who both have a proud left-leaning political focus in the past, but who also do not believe in vaccination, and are now firmly anti- 5G etc. I suspect they also do not agree with the constraints of certain laws. They have become recent converts to Billy Te Kahika's political movement. I find it so ironic, given that QAnon's influence, and that there are some very right wing people that have climbed on board the Billy TK train who seem to be lurking in the background of the NZPP - Kyle Chapman (former National Front and Right Wing Resistance leader) is organisier in some capacity. All very odd indeed, and very scary.

Kimbo said...

@ greywarbler

Although, by way of clarification, let me be clear that that the tribal left are not the only ones who are tribal. Indeed, all parts of the political spectrum are prone to that feature of human nature.

However, as acknowledged by many knowledgeable people from within the Labour Party themselves, including progressives like Helen Clark, Labour is more tribal than others, with all the attendant virtues and vices that come with it. Hence 1936, 1951, 1981 and 1984 have resonance in a way that no other political group catalogues high and low points in their history.

Chris Trotter said...

To: Flaneuse.

1,300 or 5,000 - it's a scarily-large number of scarily-deluded people!

Tiger Mountain said...

Chris@17 Sept, 10:42
Well that I can agree on. Many of us have experienced at least one previous friend that has started supporting crazed conspiracies and posts feverishly online.

The apparent answer, given the power of FB, Google etc, not to mention the dark channels, is surely to try and deliver some powerful left reforms.

Support science, support unions, and especially support the roll back of neo liberalism–and fight for it.
Many of the “neo nutters” have perfectly legitimate concerns. Alienation, disenfranchisement, oppression and low wage exploitation under 35 years of neo liberal hegemony, and pervasive post modernist philosophy, has done little for this bunch of people–or indeed those that have chosen not to join Billy TK’s motley crew.

sumsuch said...

Despite Grant's appearances on the TV politics pub programme to prove he was a well true Lefty, he lied. I wonder if he can address himself in that light. He, effectively , sold us a line. Useful for him at the time but fkn misleading, a fkn lie. The neediest need to wait forever in his view. So, not a demo-crat. As he maintained he was.

sumsuch said...

Just said to National that if they increased benefits by 50 % I'd vote for National. Like my father and grandfather during the Welfare State, and before I ever voted for Labour, as a 54-year-old social democrat.