Wednesday 30 November 2022

Hope Defeats Hate.

Third Time Winner: Daniel Andrews’ Victorian victory is of a piece with the general failure of the American Right to achieve the gains it was expecting in the recent mid-term elections. Generally speaking, voters not already addicted to the Right’s ideological Kool-Aid find very little to like about candidates who manifest the odd and at times frightening behaviour of ideological zealots and outlandish conspiracy theorists. As Simon Holmes-A’Court’s teal candidates have proved in two elections on the trot, moderation + warmth is a winning combination. 

IF JACINDA ARDERN wasn’t congratulating Victorian Labor’s Dan Andrews on Saturday evening, then she bloody well should’ve been. With a third successive Labor victory under his belt, Andrews is set to become the state’s longest-serving Labor premier. In addition to offering her own, and her party’s, hearty congratulations, the New Zealand prime minister must have been sorely tempted to add: “How the hell did you do it!”

It’s a question the whole of the Australian Right will be asking themselves. They were so confident of winning Victoria that they simply failed to notice just how profoundly the politics of the Lucky Country have changed. It simply did not occur to them that a clear majority of the population saw Andrews as something other than a cruel and capricious Covid tyrant who had locked Victorians down for weeks – and months – on end. They could not conceive a Labor premier, whose actions had unleashed street battles between trade unionists and state police, possibly retaining the loyalty of Labor voters.

As far as the Australian Right was concerned, Andrews and the Victorian Labor Party were dog-tucker. Their man, the Liberal Party leader, Matthew Guy, couldn’t lose. Victoria was about to be prized out of Labor’s cold dead hands. (The party has governed the state for all but 4 of the last 27 years.)

Those who ventured onto Twitter to impart the heretical information that there were signs Labor might win, were greeted with scorn, and tweeted with contempt. “Just you wait ‘til Saturday,” crowed the over-confident Right, “then you’ll see!”

Well, quite. And what they saw was a slight slippage in Labor’s support – understandable after 8 years in office – and a reasonably strong performance by the Liberal’s coalition partner, the National Party. But, there was nothing like the Liberal surge needed to topple Andrews’ government. Quite the contrary, in fact. In the innermost of Melbourne’s inner suburbs it was the Greens who racked up gains – taking at least 1 seat from Labor. At the same time, moderate millionaire Simon Holmes-A’Court, author of the “Teal Revolution” which unseated a clutch of Liberal party grandees in the federal election, was claiming victory in two out of the four seats contested by his Climate 200 movement.

What the Liberal Party, and the Australian Right in general, have yet to register and accept is that Australia’s centre of political gravity has shifted sharply to the left. Crucial to this crippling perceptual failure is the performance of the Australian media, the Murdoch press in particular, where right-wing sentiment has become so deeply entrenched that its editors, journalists and columnists no longer even try to understand the other side of the political divide.

Those not dismissed by right-wing “shock jocks” as “woke”, are branded “cultural Marxists”, or “critical race theorists”. It has become almost impossible to persuade the Right that the number of people who actually merit these ideological labels is nowhere near large enough to swing an election. Even more dangerously, the assumption remains (no matter how meagre the evidence) that the overwhelming majority of “ordinary people” share the Right’s rampant prejudices. It is only after the votes have been counted that their misperceptions stand exposed.

On both sides of the Tasman this sort of “bubble thinking” is apt to steer the principal parties of the Right in the wrong direction. No matter how unanimous social-media appears at times, its ideological homogeneity is much more the product of IT engineers’ algorithms than it is of some broad cultural consensus. Such consensus as still exists in the Anglosphere, is far more likely to be found clustering around the shibboleths of the Left than the Right.

Gender Equality, Climate Change, Indigenous Rights, Cultural Diversity: hard though it may be for many on the Right to accept, these causes attract vastly more followers than Racism, Sexism, Homophobia and Climate Change Denialism. Not that Murdoch’s columnists, nor Australian Sky TV’s pundits, will ever concede an inch to such ideological heresies.

Andrews’ Victorian victory is of a piece with the general failure of the American Right to achieve the gains it was expecting in the recent mid-term elections. Generally speaking, voters not already addicted to the Right’s ideological Kool-Aid find very little to like about candidates who manifest the odd and at times frightening behaviour of ideological zealots and outlandish conspiracy theorists. As Holmes-A’Court’s “teal” candidates have proved in two elections on the trot, moderation + warmth is a winning combination – even in traditionally conservative electorates.

What, then, can New Zealand’s Labour leader, Jacinda Ardern, learn from the experience of her Victorian counterpart?

Almost certainly, the most important lesson to be drawn from Saturday’s Victorian result is that it is very wrong to give too much credence to the Right’s predictions of inevitable – and crushing – victory. The political-economy of the mainstream news media makes it considerably easier to shape right-wing than left-wing political narratives. In spite of numerous studies confirming that a majority of journalists lean to the left, it is rare to encounter mainstream journalists willing to cast the conduct of their employer’s principal advertisers in a consistently unfavourable light.

Equally unwise, is the ingrained habit of far too many political journalists to speak with unwarranted confidence about the attitudes of “ordinary” people. All too frequently, such commentary is based on nothing more than the crudest stereotypes. Among the Professional and Managerial Class, in particular, there is a pernicious view of “ordinary” people as repositories of all manner of “deplorable” prejudices and predilections – as if they weren’t discussing human-beings at all, but orcs.

Jacinda Ardern should draw reassurance from both the American and Australian elections that holding fast to a moderate progressivism is very far from being a losing strategy. Refusing to engage in the mud-wrestling so beloved of populist politicians is also unlikely to cost her votes. Nor being willing to engage in a little public humility. People who make mistakes every day of their lives are surprisingly willing to forgive those politicians who admit to being human, all-too-human.

Perhaps the most important lesson our Prime Minister could learn from the Victorian Premier, however, is the one he delivered to his fellow Victorians on election night. Quoting the former Labor prime-minister of Australia, Paul Keating, Andrews told his cheering followers: “Leadership isn’t about doing what’s popular, it’s about doing what’s right.” Alluding to the trials of the Covid-19 Pandemic, he praised his fellow Victorians for maintaining their “faith in science, and their faith in each other”.

It was that sense of kindness, he said, that sense of all being in this together, that carried Victoria through a one-in-one-hundred-year crisis. “Friends,” he reassured his fellow Victorians, “hope always defeats hate.”


This essay was originally posted on the Interest.co.nz website on Monday, 28 November 2022.

10 comments:

Odysseus said...

There's very little that is "moderate" or "progressive" about Ardern's government. You yourself have referred to her as totalitarian. At the UN she called for free speech to be treated as a weapon of war, and is now actively encouraging New Zealanders to peep through their net curtains to spy on neighbours whose views may be a bit "off".

The Liberals never had a chance in Victoria. By trying to out-Woke the Woke they self-immolated. They have a great deal of soul-searching to do.

Gary Peters said...

The world has moved markedly to the left but the current policies of this government that will sink them are hardly the policies of the left. He puapua, maori health and co-governance could be seen more as policies of the right in giving a minority an undemocratic right of control over the majority.

That it is a racial minority is irrelevant, it is as much minority rule as any wealthy landowning elites have had in the not too distant past.

The neutral non offensive role that Luxon is following that is annoying the more rabid on the right is a winning strategy and Seymour/ACT will hoover up those demanding a more agressive response to labour.

In my opinion.

Guerilla Surgeon said...

Unfortunately, the mainstream media when not pushing a right wing ideology, is wedded to the faux "there are good people on both sides" narrative. Whenever someone from the right or an organisation from right does something wrong they are eager to find similar happenings at the other end of the political spectrum for "balance". There are some questions that don't really have two sides. Racism sexism and homophobia for instance. :)

Unknown said...

Maybe the revelations about ScoMo ratbaggery at a Federal level ere factors.

John Hurley said...

“How the hell did you do it!”

He shouted "Nazi, Nazi, Nazi" to a state that is becoming "Asian" ("a wealthy middle class from India and China are choosing us"; "they aren't like your immigrants of the past as they land at the top; you have to ask what happens to the people lower down as livability suffers?") [?]

Part of this video has been wiped out - actually I don't know what happened but is in NZ and Paul Spoonley was in attendance.
https://youtu.be/sccXWJuphtI

Anonymous said...

The Maori elites responsible for selling the land from under the feet of their subjects in the 19th century had initially attempted to keep their domains in leasehold title thereby protecting their own elevated status .
Pakeha on the other hand had no interest in trading their previous land owning overlords for a colonial equivalent so promoted and largely achieved freehold title

That achievement rankles Maori elites to this day

Loz said...

The Australian Constitution allows state government no purview over income or company tax, GST, foreign exchange or international trade. This separation of responsibility has allowed Victorian Labor to completely abandon neoliberalism without the international problems of doing so.

During its last term, Labor ran a major platform of public investment in state infrastructure especially rail and underground development. The government is
reintroducing free tertiary education with a growing number of courses, free kindergarten and now the incoming
government will effectively nationalise wholesale electricity generation and change the constitution to prevent future asset sales. It's a traditional labour platform straight from the 1970's or early 1980's and its popular.

Andrews has strong relationships with the Unions, which are actively involved in forming government policy for their various sectors. Labor’s electoral machine is also highly polished with an ability to engage large numbers of activists on the ground.

The success of Victorian Labour in staring down an aggressively hostile mainstream media while focusing on expanding the public sector invigorated parties to the left of Andrews. Metropolitan seats with high youth concentrations extended support for the Greens and in those electorates, very progressive parties such as Fiona Patten's Reason Party and the newly formed Victorian Socialists managed to secure 10%-15% of the vote. It’s a lesson in how to successfully shift the center of politics by directly engaging with the public.

Some have argued that that the success of Labor is more due to the failure of Liberal party strategy and campaign.

The Liberals have shuffled their way across the spectrum to an identity politics position, defining itself as an “anti-left” party in a US styled Trumpian Tea Party alignment. It’s often visible in opposition to climate action, pro-coal, pro-gas, pro-fracking with an emerging evangelical Christian moralism that’s anti-gay, anti-union, anti-government and has accumulated an enormous string of controversies that taste of grift and corruption. The reduced size of caucus has only consolidated power around entrenched internal factions that are pushing the party further toward a reactionary fringe that appeals to an American Red state base rather than an Australian electorate. As a result, it’s membership and electoral machine of volunteers is almost non-existent. This has a lot to do with Murdoch and Sky News programming that intentionally produces content in Australia for consumption in the US market but that same programming has become the primary news source for Liberal strategists.

In contrast to the Liberals, the Nationals (who have traditionally been the junior, rural party of the coalition) are a success story of the election. They increased their vote and have gained an additional three seats. Considering that the party didn’t field candidates in the majority of state electorates is a real achievement. The Nationals ran on a platform of typical conservative values which included policy commitments to action on climate change, regional public transport services expansion, increased support for mental health and family violence services and monopoly breaking actions on gas supply.

Both Labor and the Nationals avoided the identity politics culture positioning that’s become dominant in politics in recent years, and both were rewarded with growing support as a result.

John Hurley said...

John Campbell interviews Shamubeel Eaqub on Auckland house prices.
Is framed as "generational wedge". Young people want to be part of Auckland; old (white) people in "leafy" suburbs are stopping them.
We tend to look at supply (we tend to avoid discussing demand), because racist; Nazi; "white NZ"] no ethnic group should have a referent geography (an Israel for everyone or an Israel for no one?).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioZn-_V8iyI

John Hurley said...

Gender Equality, Climate Change, Indigenous Rights, Cultural Diversity: hard though it may be for many on the Right to accept, these causes attract vastly more followers than Racism, Sexism, Homophobia and Climate Change Denialism. Not that Murdoch’s columnists, nor Australian Sky TV’s pundits, will ever concede an inch to such ideological heresies.
..............................

The latter is just a straw man. Are we really going to get the alternative from a right leaning MSM - Mike Hosking? Yeah right.
Just go back over official programming, left-leaning media has been priming us for population growth and density; right leaning media has been priming us for density and sprawl.
National are using Paula Bennet to push their election campaign: the real-estate agent who thinks Auckland could be twice as big (for the infrastructure not livability). Do Labour voters really want to live in an Auckland twice the size? Do they really want to live amongst "cultural diversity". Duncan Garner doesn't.

What is "cultural diversity". Our immigration settings determine the terms but not the numbers; the numbers are determined by the demands of skilled migrants in China and India escaping "a degraded environment and overcrowding" the requirement for skills is created by the house buying activities of the skilled migrant. For that we are seeing a future where white NZrs will become "majority/minority".
If your Labour voter is O.K with that then you have to ask: what is their IQ; what is their income? I drive to work with someone who opens his cellphone and his news feed. When he keels over his estate will be net negative. I note he sides with Megahn Markle and other additions to his baby bottle.
https://merionwest.com/2019/12/17/the-best-kept-secret-of-our-political-divide/

John Hurley said...

Both in New Zealand and globally, the best of the leftwing tradition has always rejected small-minded nationalism, xenophobia and racism. In fact, leftists of an internationalist tradition have always favoured globalization and getting rid of national borders and barriers to migration. Progressive advocates of globalization of course do not defend a handful of rich imperialist countries, including New Zealand, dominating the world’s economy, but instead advocate an integrated and radically egalitarian world economy where production is based on social need and not on private profit.
https://liberation.typepad.com/liberation/2012/02/guest-blog-post-john-moore-leftwing-xenophobia-in-new-zealand.html

That denies people a right to an identity. Not as a distinct people but as having their own place.
Meng Foon tells Maori to "buy land" and "never sell", "land is mana". Mana is status; Māori is an identity.
We have seen the callousness of the left in siding with National over density.
Bernard Hickey in his latest Kaka says he is primarily concerned with "housing affordability, climate change, and child poverty". These justify anything.