Bringing National To Its Knees.

Take It To The Lord In Prayer: Adding to the internal pressures applied by National’s own right-wing  Christian MPs, is the rise of the even more religiously conservative New Conservative Party. With the latter rumoured to be stripping thousands of Christian votes away from National, is it any wonder Judith Collins fell to her knees in the chapel and began an earnest conversation with God!

WHAT IS WRONG with the picture of Judith Collins at prayer? In her maiden speech to Parliament, Collins testified to her belief in God. Presumably, then, her Christian faith is a longstanding facet of her political persona. Why should anyone take exception to the images of her kneeling in prayer.

There are many reasons for New Zealanders to furrow their brows at these images.

First and foremost, as any reasonably well-educated Christian knows, such public displays of piety are frowned upon by Jesus himself. It took an old-fashioned Sunday school graduate like Winston Peters only a few moments to locate the relevant verses from the sixth chapter of Matthew’s gospel:

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen.

It is curious that Judith Collins appears to be unfamiliar with these verses since they precede what is, arguably, the most quoted passage from the New Testament – The Lord’s Prayer. Certainly, a Christian more familiar with Jesus’s teachings would have hesitated to pray in circumstances where her actions would, inevitably, be captured by the news media and broadcast across the entire country. Does praying alone in an empty chapel while the cameras rolled constitute going into your room and closing the door? Or, is it more akin to praying on the street corners to be seen by others?

Even those New Zealanders whose feet have never crossed the threshold of a church or a Sunday school would likely have reacted uneasily to Collin’s display. In part this is a reflection of New Zealand society’s rapidly increasing secularisation. In the 2018 Census, only 37 percent of the population were prepared to declare themselves Christian. Forty years ago, by way of contrast, the fraction of New Zealanders declaring themselves Christian was well in excess of two-thirds. The unavoidable conclusion? That the overt expression of religious belief is fast becoming unusual in New Zealand. Judith Collins praying in the pose of an altar-panel saint looked odd because it was odd.

For political secularists, Collins behaviour is especially objectionable. It has long been a central tenet of New Zealand’s democratic political system that Church and State remain strictly separated. As far back as Nineteenth Century, this principle was reflected in New Zealand legislation. The Education Act of 1877 clearly stipulated that the provision of public education in New Zealand was to be “free, compulsory and secular”.

The only period in New Zealand political history when a citizen’s membership of a specific Christian denomination became an excuse for something pretty closely resembling persecution was during, and immediately after, the First World War. New Zealand’s wartime government was dominated by the right-wing Reform Party leader and Prime Minister, Bill Massey. A member of the rabidly Protestant Orange Order, Massey regarded New Zealand Catholics as both a religious and political threat.

Massey’s bigotry found strong institutional support in the Protestant Political Association. Formed in 1919, the PPA worked hand-in-glove with the Reform Party to maintain the ascendancy of Protestantism in New Zealand. They were especially concerned to block the rise of the NZ Labour Party. Formed in 1916, Labour was strongly supported by New Zealand’s large Irish-Catholic community.

The most notorious instance of religious bigotry in this fractious period of New Zealand history came in 1922 when the Catholic Assistant-Bishop of Auckland, James Liston, was put on trial for sedition for recalling in a speech he delivered on St Patrick’s Day the Irish patriots who fell in the 1916 Easter Rising. The all Protestant jury acquitted him, but could not refrain from noting that Liston had committed “a grave indiscretion”.

On the Left, the vexed question of how to integrate Catholic schools into New Zealand’s secular public education system remained a cause of considerable contention right up until the early 1970s. It was in hopes of bringing this contentious issue to a favourable conclusion that the quasi-official Catholic newspaper “The Tablet” came out openly for the Labour Party in the general election of 1972. The reconciliation effected between Catholics and socialist secularists by the creation of “Integrated Schools” was, however, short-lived. The rise of feminism and the ongoing campaign for a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion pretty much sundered orthodox Catholicism from the secular labour movement.

The success of the so-called “new social movements” – most especially in relation to their expansion of women’s and LGBTQ+ rights – threw the principle of Church/State separation into particularly sharp relief. Increasingly, Christianity retreated into the theology of evangelical fundamentalism, or, in the case of the Catholic Church, rigid doctrinal orthodoxy. Liberal Christianity was in full retreat as the principal protestant denominations turned their faces from the agitation for the creation of gay and lesbian ministers and the right of LGBTQ+ Christians to marry.

For conservative Christians, the willingness of the secular state to legislate over the objections of the churches, had made it necessary for the churches to take control of the state. The most obvious means of securing such control is to increase the influence of conservative Christian morality in the parties of the Right. If conservative parties could be made beholden to conservative Christian voters, then, upon taking office, their legislators could re-enshrine the moral certainties the secularists have so wickedly overturned.

Thanks to groups like the Maxim Institute, this seeding of the socially-conservative Right with Christian candidates has been proceeding steadily for some time. Maxim’s chosen vessel, the NZ National Party, has, for more than fifteen years, been choosing evangelical fundamentalist Christians to represent the party in safe seats. This has progressed to the point where Christian support, if not already crucial to the success of an aspiring leader, is fast becoming so. The recent departure of so many of National’s liberal MPs, and the projected loss of still more in the general election already underway, seems certain to strengthen the influence of National’s Christian Right.

Adding to the internal pressures applied by National’s own Christian MPs, is the rise of the even more conservative New Conservative Party. With the latter rumoured to be stripping thousands of Christian votes away from National, is it any wonder Judith Collins fell to her knees in the chapel and began an earnest conversation with God!

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Tuesday, 6th October 2020.

You Know What? Collins Could Win This.

Right On A Roll: If the 200,000 former National voters, most of them women over 45 years-of-age, who crossed over to Labour in recognition of Jacinda’s management of the Covid-19 emergency, begin to waver, then the shape of the battle-lines will change dramatically. Instead of a cake-walk to victory, this election will become a knife-fight for political survival.

THIS IS SERIOUS now. Judith Collins is leading the National Party back into electoral contention. Against all the appearances of just a fortnight ago, Labour’s 50 percent fortress is proving to be alarmingly vulnerable. Jacinda could lose this.

If the 200,000 former National voters, most of them women over 45 years-of-age, who crossed over to Labour in recognition of Jacinda’s management of the Covid-19 emergency, begin to waver, then the shape of the battle-lines will change dramatically. Instead of a cake-walk to victory, this election will become a knife-fight for political survival.

In the light of Collins’ two pretty good Leaders’ Debate performances, it is highly likely that the wavering has already begun. What’s more, if it’s picked up by Colmar Brunton’s and Reid Research’s pollsters, then the pace and scale of that wavering will only increase. The trickle of Nats returning to the fold, will become a flood. By Election Day the two main parties could be duking it out for the prize of a percentage beginning with 4. If that is where the two major parties do end up, then the share of the Party Vote won by Act and the Greens will be critical to the election’s outcome.

In this situation, the Right has the advantage. National deserters returning to the fold will come, overwhelmingly, from Labour. What that is likely to precipitate is a stampede back to Labour by left-leaning voters who’d made a strategic decision to support the Greens. That would be the very worst thing they could do, of course, but it won’t stop them. Their panic-driven determination to rally-round Jacinda, to protect the Queen, will drown out the voice of political rationality. If this sudden surge from the Greens to Labour is too large, then it’s all over. Driven below the 5 percent MMP threshold, the Greens’ inadequate share of the Party Vote will be redistributed among the successful parties. National and Act, together, will have more than enough seats to form a government. Labour will be out.

The truly terrifying aspect of this grim scenario is that there is so very little that Labour can do to defend itself. It is important to recall that in 2017, with “Jacindamania” in full-swing, Labour could attract no more than 37 percent of the Party Vote. That was 7 percentage points shy of National’s 44 percent. The raw political arithmetic of these results is not encouraging. Even with the more progressive remnants of NZ First in its pocket, Labour’s 2020 numbers – sans National’s deserters – will struggle to add up to more than 40 percent.

It gets worse. Labour, in its pride, has ruled out a deal in Auckland Central. So, unlike National and Act, if Labour’s numbers end up being even marginally fattened by “strategic” Green voters returning to the fold, then that extra fat could kill its chances of re-election stone-dead. By contrast, Act can fall below the 5 percent threshold without denying its National Party ally the additional seats needed to govern. Perhaps it’s time for Labour to ask itself exactly how badly it wants Helen White to beat Chloe Swarbrick?

Labour’s strategists’ dreams about building an unbeatable “centrist coalition” out of the professional-managerial middle-class and the upwardly-mobile working-class: a broad electoral alliance from which the extremes of right and left could be shaken-off; were always ridiculously optimistic. The idea of a new kind of politics, accessible to “progressive New Zealanders”, but not to the backward-looking National Party, always grossly over-estimated the middle-class’s willingness to share. That those same strategists assessed the poorest and most marginalised New Zealanders as being permanently alienated from electoral politics, left Labour with no Plan-B. If all it takes to woo back National’s 200,000 deserters are a few well-rehearsed zingers from Judith Collins, then from whence can Labour possibly hope to replace them? Unfortunately, there’s no “progressive” answer to that question.

Surely, there must be something Labour can do to hold its Covid Converts in place? Yes, there is, and it can be summed-up in a single word: “Fear.” Jacinda and her colleagues need to pivot away immediately from their current message of rather complacent optimism, and towards the imminent threat of a National-Act programme of ruthless economic austerity. Scare the bejesus out of the nurses and teachers Judith Collins is forever appealing to. Make them feel the fear of cuts and lay-offs as Paul Goldsmith – egged-on by David Seymour – plays Edward Scissorhands with public health and education. Make all those 45+ women hear, in their mind’s ear, the demented cackle of Collins on election night as she discovers how many of her sisters have fallen for her “Nice Judith” routine.

Ask moderate voters to ask themselves why Collins has suddenly taken to describing herself as a Christian. Exactly to whom is this new, devout, Judith appealing? To which faction of the National Party caucus has this newly-minted Christian Collins sworn her undying loyalty? Do moderate voters really want to see their country pitched into the sort of culture wars that have brought the United States to the brink of civil war? When the voters look at Judith Collins, Labour needs to make them see Donald Trump.

Too much? Not at all. Who do you think National’s going to go after over the course of the next fortnight? Who do they need people to flee from in terror? No, not Labour! National’s target will be the Greens. The party’s message will be brutally simple: the only way to avoid paying a Wealth Tax; the only way to prevent the dairy industry from being destroyed; the only way to preserve your right to free speech; is to Party Vote National. Jacinda couldn’t say no to Winston Peters, the Covid Converts will be told, so can you really see her saying no to Marama Davidson and Golriz Ghahraman?

See how easy it is! Scare the Covid Converts back to National. That will scare the strategic Green voters back to Jacinda. That takes the Greens below the 5 percent MMP threshold. And that’s ‘Game Over’.

So, you know what? Labour’s only real chance of securing re-election is to scare them the hell back.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Friday, 2 October 2020.

The End Of Their World.

God's Instrument? At the very heart of the President’s electoral coalition are the evangelical Christian churches who see Donald Trump as God’s chosen instrument: the means by which the ancient prophecies contained in the Bible will be fulfilled. Painting by Marco Ventura.

WHEN THE VICTORY of a political party becomes confused with the end of the world, society has a problem. Democracy, if it’s anything, is an agreement to surrender power without a fight. If an election ends with anything other than an uncomplicated re-confirmation of the status-quo, or the peaceful transfer of political authority, then democracy, like Elvis, has left the building. What remains inside the building is seldom pretty.

That President Donald Trump has refused to guarantee a peaceful transfer of power should he lose the 3 November election bodes very ill for the American republic. At the very least, it signals his unshakeable conviction that he is politically invincible in a “free and fair” fight. It serves no purpose for Trump’s opponents to point out that, in a democracy, acknowledging the possibility of defeat is almost as important as accepting it. Trump is so certain that he speaks for the “real” America, that he “knows” he can’t be beaten.

Who is the “real” America? We all know the answer to that question. The real America is white. The real America repels “socialism” as naturally as water repels oil. The real America puts its trust in God – and in the special people He chooses to do His will. What’s more, we all know who Donald Trump does not count as real Americans. They are Blacks. They are Hispanic. They are Muslims. And, they include all those who challenge the idea that White, Christian, Capitalist America is an unequivocal force for good in the world.

It’s that idea of the United States being a “force for good” that holds the key to understanding the formidable threat to democracy which Trump has become. At the very heart of the President’s electoral coalition are the evangelical Christian churches who see the USA as God’s chosen instrument: the means by which the ancient prophecies contained in the Bible will be fulfilled. That’s why there are no more fervent defenders of the State of Israel than American evangelicals. Israel, they are certain, is destined, alongside the USA, to usher-in the great reckoning described in the Book of Revelation.

Unbelievers are often puzzled by the evangelicals’ unswerving support for Trump. How can they tolerate such a self-confessed sinner at the head of God’s chosen nation? Their two-word rejoinder: King David.

The ancient Israeli king was not a good man. David spied on Bathsheba as she bathed and was consumed with lust for her body. Her soldier husband, Uriah, he ordered into the front lines, thus ensuring his death, and making it possible for the Hittite’s wife to be enjoyed by her king undisturbed. Covetousness, murder and fornication! And yet, God loved David, and David loved the Lord. If God could overlook the sins of King David, then he will overlook the sins of President Trump. The Lord moves in mysterious ways!

Perhaps He was at work in the Republican Party-controlled state legislatures when all those voter-suppression laws were passed. Perhaps He was guiding the hands of Republican Governors when they signed the contracts tasking Republican Party-friendly companies with purging the voter rolls. Perhaps it’s His voice that speaks through the mouths of all those Fox News “journalists”.

You can’t be an evangelical Christian without believing fervently that God reveals his will through his chosen servants. That all human history positively snaps, crackles and pops with the electricity of His divine will. Right now, the evangelicals of America are looking at Trump’s nominee for the US Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett, a devout Christian who will turn America away from what she and her co-religionists regard as the sinful judicial decisions of the last 50 years. On their knees, with fervent devotion, they will thank God for his perfectly-timed decision to send Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the everlasting reward she so richly deserves.

The ancient Greek word apokalypsis, is best translated as “unveiling”. “Apocalyptic” thinking, therefore, is all about what you think you’ve been shown of the “End Times”. For the evangelical Christian, the showman, obviously, is God himself. For those Trump supporters who prefer not to live on their knees, however, the unveiling of hidden truths requires a slightly less supernatural agent. No worries, if God won’t do, then there’s always the anonymous “Q”.

God, or no God, if Trump loses, their world ends.

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 2 October 2020.

Conversation In An American Bar.

Out of Options: “What does it say about this country, Jerry, that this is the choice we’ve been given? Between a septuagenarian grifter and a septuagenarian dotard. Three hundred and thirty million Americans and the best candidates we can come up with for President of these United States are Donald Trump and Joe Biden!”

“JESUS WEPT! Turn it off, Jerry, I’ve seen enough!”

“Don’t you touch that remote, barman! Me and my friends are enjoying watching the President beat the living crap out of Sleepy Joe Biden, senile old bastard.”

Jerry sizes-up the huge man in front of him. The bulging biceps, the impressive amount of ink, the MAGA cap on his head, and nods.

“Sorry, Carl”, he says, moving down the bar and pouring his old friend a free glass beer by way of apology.

“No, no, it’s alright, Jerry. I shouldn’t have asked you to deny your patrons their gladiatorial sport.”

“Gladiatorial? Doesn’t that imply two evenly matched fighters? Not much evidence of equality in this contest. More like a face-off between a Christian and a lion.”

“What does it say about this country, Jerry, that this is the choice we’ve been given? Between a septuagenarian grifter and a septuagenarian dotard. Three hundred and thirty million Americans and the best candidates we can come up with for President of these United States are Donald Trump and Joe Biden!”

“What it says, Carl, is that the people of this country are hoping that a Democrat Dad or a Republican Pop will sort everything out. Not themselves, they don’t really trust themselves. And certainly not their kids. The younger generation are a complete mystery to them. They’re reaching back to those times in their lives when they turned to Mom and Dad for help. When their first marriage crashed and burned. When their second business failed. When their eldest daughter got pregnant to that drug dealer. When the factory closed and they lost their job. Those moments when they were at a loss. When they were scared. When they needed help.”

Carl throws back his beer and brings the glass down on the bar with a crack.

“Another?”

“Thanks, Jerry.”

A great cheer goes up from the MAGA men. Carl looks up at the big screen and turns away quickly from the bewildered expression on Sleepy Joe’s face.

“Poor old bastard really is getting a shellacking – as Obama used to say. And all those guys in the caps: why in God’s name are they cheering-on a New York billionaire who pays $750 a year in taxes? Jeez, that’s less than half what those guys pay the IRS. Dammit! They’re all working stiffs, just like you and me. Why can’t they see that Trump is not their friend?”

“Oh, come on, Carl, you know that ain’t true. He’s been a better friend to them than Hilary Clinton would ever have been. He gets them, Carl. He knows them. They’re the guys he used to josh around with on his daddy’s building sites when he was a teenager. Remember Nixon’s Hard Hats from the 1970s? The guys who beat the living shit out of those anti-war hippies outside the New York Stock Exchange. Trump’s always known that the American working-class ain’t exactly full of liberals.”

“Oh, don’t, Jerry. Don’t say that – not when it’s true.”

“And I’ll tell you something else. At some place, deep, deep down, they get him, too. They know that only Fat Cats can get Fat Cats. Guys like them, working stiffs, as you call them, they worked out long ago exactly how much power they don’t have. The guys who worked for Trump senior, their unions were all run by the Mob. Look the wrong way at those wise-guys – let alone stand against one of them for the presidency of the union – and likely as not you’d end up in the foundations of one of old man Trump’s tenement buildings.”

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t always like that, was it?”

“Wasn’t it? What was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, if not a Fat Cat from upstate New York? What else was Jack Kennedy? Jesus Christ, Carl, the guy went to Choate and Harvard! You know what his daddy told him, Carl? As he was preparing to send his little boy to the White House? He said, ‘Son, to become President of the United States you only need three things. The first is, money. The second is, money. And the third is, money.’ And, guess what, Joe Kennedy had plenty of all three!”

“Yeah, well, Clinton wasn’t from a rich family, and neither was Obama.”

“And didn’t it show, Carl? Didn’t it show! They couldn’t do enough for the big boys on Wall Street. Look at Obama, when he summoned the big bankers to the White House. Man, they were quaking in their boots. They thought Obama was going to go after them with an axe. Did he? Like hell he did! He told them not to worry. He bailed out their banks. He rescued Wall Street. What about Main Street? Fuck Main Street! Ordinary folks – like those guys in the caps – they have never been too big to fail.”

“Oh my God! Did I just hear Trump tell the Proud Boys to ‘stand back and stand by’?”

“Judging by the cheers and the fist-pumping, Carl, I think that’s exactly what you heard.”

“Jesus Christ! What they hell is it with this guy? Does he really want a civil war?”

“Isn’t it obvious, Carl? Of course he wants a civil war. It’s what he’s wanted from the very beginning. Not just because he’s broke. Not just because he owes the IRS. Not just because he’s likely to be indited on multiple charges if Biden beats him. But because the United States is all played out. He knows it. Those guys in the MAGA caps know it. Wall Street knows it. The military know it. About the only people who don’t know it are the Democratic National Committee and the mainstream news media.”

“Jeez, Jerry, lighten-up will ya. It’s not that bad.”

“Actually, Carl, it is that bad. This country’s tired, bone-tired, of pretending to be something it’s not. It’s tired of trying to live up to Lincoln’s “better angels”. Everybody knows that the stories America tells herself are the worst kind of lies. We’re a vicious, rapacious people: always have been, always will be. How does Bob Dylan put it in his song, Blind Willy McTell? ‘Well, God is in his heaven, and we all want what’s his. But, power and greed, and corruptible seed, seem to be all that there is.’”

“Man, you need a drink!”

“Carl, I’m just getting started. You know I love to read history.”

“Oh yeah. We all know about you and your history books, Jerry.”

“Well, let me tell you something about the Roman Republic. It was brought down by wealthy men. Not aristocrats, mind you, but plutocrats. And do you know how these Fat Cat Romans, brought it down? By siding with the plebs against the aristocrats. By promising to look after them – and keeping their promise. By pledging to expand the Empire – and making Rome great again. By sharing with the plebs the wealth which the Senate and People of Rome plundered from the tribes and cities they conquered. I tell you, Carl, the American republic is going to end exactly the same way. It’s going to be brought down by an unholy alliance of the very rich and the very poor. It’s going to be destroyed by an American Caesar.”

Carl’s response is drowned out by the guys at the end of the bar breaking into a chant:

“USA! USA! USA!”

This short story was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Thursday, 1 October 2020.

Only Bob Dylan Has The Words For The Trump-Biden Debate.

 

Idiot Wind 

by BOB DYLAN

It took only ten minutes to grasp the sheer scale of the Democrat's failure. This sad old man, Sleepy Joe Biden, hasn't a hope of defeating Donald Trump. Goddammit! It's a wonder that he still knows how to breathe!

Idiot Wind indeed!

Video courtesy of YouTube.

This posting exclusive to the Bowalley Road blogsite.

The Confident Traveller Led Astray - A Poem For Winston Peters.

Quo Vadis, Winston?

Where are you going, Winston, 

Son of the winterless north?
We have lost count of the summers
Since first you ventured forth.
This track on which we find you,
Unmarked on any map,
Leads travellers to strange places.
Do you not fear mishap?


Countless roads I’ve travelled,
Oh ye of little faith.
Not once have I been bested
By spectre, ghoul or wraith.
My enemies take courage
From wishful thoughts and lies,
But while my star still leads me on,
Its light their spite defies.


The light that leads you, Winston,
That glimmer you call a star,
It comes from quite a different source –
A flame that’s near, not far.
Your guide is called Jacinda,
Of all our hearts the queen.
She is the one you follow,
T’is hers, the lustrous sheen.


Oh cursed is the news you bring me!
For now my folly’s known.
To have thought the baubles of my trade
Were made for me alone.
But now it’s clear the stardust,
Whose lustre led me on,
Was never meant for me to share,
And all my hopes are gone.


Did we not warn you, Winston
Of where your path could end?
Of places strange and unforeseen
To which it might descend?
See how Jacinda hastens?
How quickly her light doth fade?
Grasp you now, in the gathering dark,
The dreadful mistake you’ve made?

This poem was originally posted on The Daily Blog of 29 September 2020.

True Believers In A False God.

Down The Rabbit Hole: "Social psychologists have found that when fearful people contemplate potential misfortunes, they tend to feel helpless and pessimistic, but when angry people contemplate the same, they feel a sense of optimism and control. And one simple way to transmute fear into anger is to perceive an evil agent behind whatever development is causing you uncertainty and disquiet." - Eric Levitz.

WHEN ADOLF HITLER committed suicide on 30 April 1945, thousands of Germans followed his example. The most famous copy-cats were Joseph Goebbels and his wife, Magda. Not only did they take their own lives, but also those of their six children. The idea of surviving the Fuhrer, being held accountable for everything he, and they, had done, seeing National Socialism overthrown and accepting the inevitable ruin of everything they had hoped for and fought for, was simply too overwhelming for many fanatical Nazis to contemplate.

Good riddance! Well, yes, that’s one response. But just consider the following excerpt from US writer, Eric Levitz’s “QAnon Is Madness: But Believing It Can Be Rational” article posted on The Intelligencer website of 23/9/20:

“Speaking with voters in Wisconsin this month, Time reporter Charlotte Alter heard conspiracy theories from about 20 percent of her interview subjects. Many of these Wisconsinites were not familiar with QAnon but subscribed to its basic tenets. Tina Arthur, a small-business owner, told Alter that she was not a follower of QAnon but did believe that the Democrats were in league with a cabal of blood-drinking child rapists and that ‘if Biden wins, the world is over, basically … I would probably take my children and sit in the garage and turn my car on, and it would be over.’”

What the hell is going on, when a businesswoman from the Mid-Western United States is willing to wipe out her entire family rather than face the prospect of living under a Democratic President? Because, when all is said and done, “Sleepy Joe” Biden is a very far cry from Joseph Stalin, and even the most strident antifa protester is nowhere near as dangerous as the vengeance-seeking soldiers of the Red Army. How did as many as 20 percent of Americans end up tumbling down this dangerously hallucinatory rabbit-hole?

According to Levitz, conspiracy theories have much more to offer confused and frightened citizens than may, at first glance, be apparent:

“The tendency toward conspiracism is deeply rooted in the human psyche. It manifests across time and geography and is likely a product of evolutionary pressures. On an emotional level, human beings tend to find the idea of being threatened by forces beyond their comprehension or control much more upsetting than being threatened by an intelligible enemy. Social psychologists have found that when fearful people contemplate potential misfortunes, they tend to feel helpless and pessimistic, but when angry people contemplate the same, they feel a sense of optimism and control. And one simple way to transmute fear into anger is to perceive an evil agent behind whatever development is causing you uncertainty and disquiet.”

With this in mind, we begin to appreciate the powerful psychological insight behind the New Zealand Government’s “Unite Against Covid-19!” campaign. By personifying the virus, transforming it into an “evil agent” which New Zealanders could defeat collectively, the Government and the Ministry of Health headed-off the sort of QAnon craziness that has turned so many fearful Americans into gibbering paranoiacs.

The other key factor in this country’s success in preventing the widespread uptake of insane conspiracy theories was the regular 1:00pm briefings from Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Director-General of Health, Dr Ashley Bloomfield. Fear grows exponentially in the absence of timely and reliable information. New Zealand was, therefore, especially fortunate in having the “Jacinda and Ashley Show”. These two particularly gifted and credible communicators were able to deliver on an almost daily basis the answers and reassurance their frightened fellow citizens were so eager to receive. Such anger as was generated out of public fear tended to be directed against those who refused to “unite against the virus”. Not only did this popular enforcement of the Covid-19 Lockdown impede the disease’s spread, but it also served as a useful safety-valve for the tensions occasioned by the extraordinary limitations of individual freedom which the fight against the pandemic necessitated.

The comparison with the United States could hardly be more stark. Rather than the consistent and uplifting communications of Jacinda Ardern, the Americans were exposed to the constantly changing, often contradictory, messages of President Donald Trump. Also a formidable communicator, Trump deployed his talent in ways that fed, rather than calmed, his people’s fears, and fuelled their anger with hyper-politicised bulletins of unprecedented malignancy.

It would be wrong, however, to suggest that New Zealanders have been unanimous in their acceptance of the measures adopted to “stamp out” the virus. Although upwards of three-quarters of the population have registered either their “support” or “strong-support” for the Government’s handling of the Covid-19 crisis, that still leaves a quarter of the population unconvinced.

Some of these were the sort of hyper-individualists so often found in the upper reaches of societies dominated by the ideology of neoliberalism. Such people (most of them men) find the idea of standing in solidarity with the “sheeple” abhorrent. Equally unappealing, from the perspective of these “One Percenters”, is the unhelpful example set by the all-too-obvious success of collective intervention. Well-positioned to communicate their opposition, these Covid sceptics have been unceasing in their efforts to undermine the Government’s solidaristic appeals to “The Team of Five Million”.

The other pool of scepticism and resistance is fed by the fear and ignorance of New Zealand’s least educated and most marginalised citizens. With little cause to trust a state which bitter experience has taught them to regard as an alien and hostile entity, these folk remained largely untouched by the Government’s campaign against Covid-19. In terms of social-psychology, they are precisely the people who feel “threatened by forces beyond their comprehension or control”. Looking for “an intelligible enemy” to blame for their shitty world becoming even shittier, they have every reason to believe, and insufficient intellectual resources to refute, the conspiracy theories fed to them by the algorithms of social media and the political predators who so adroitly exploit them.

Once inside the rabbit holes of the conspiracists; once supplied with the identity of the “evil agents” against whom their now inflamed emotions can be directed; once filled with the optimism and sense of control that makes being angry in the company of like minds so much more bearable than being alone and frightened; once the hallucinations have become more compelling than reality; what then is the incentive to stop seeing things that aren’t there? Better by far to expand the rabbit hole until in encompasses the whole world.

And if reality reasserts itself: either in the form of the Fuhrer’s death and the Red Army’s victory; or in the person of President Biden and a Democratic Party-controlled Congress; then what is the point of going on? Better to grab the kids, administer the poison, and avoid shouldering the unbearable heaviness of being exposed as a true believer in a false god.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Friday, 25 September 2020.