NEW ZEALAND
The Trumpism spilling out onto Parliament's lawn is the new virusJacinda Ardern said what was happening "is illegal, we're all clear on that".
Andrea Vance, Feb 20 2022
Andrea Vance is a senior Stuff journalist and a regular opinion writer.
OPINION: Please don’t let this be our 2016.
New Zealand always lags behind global political trends. Nearly six years ago, thanks to the populism of former US President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the very laws and conventions that underpinned liberal democracy were shaken.
They fought (and won) elections on a people vs the establishment ticket. Now their people are picking up the pieces. Trump is gone, and Johnson is hanging by a thread.
Their societies are fractured and divided.
Over the past fortnight, it has felt like New Zealand is stumbling blindly down the same path.
Did we escape the political turmoil wreaked by Trump, Brexit, and the march of the far right across Europe? Only to have it creep up on us as we stumble, exhausted, stressed and miserable to the tail end of the pandemic?
The small but vocal minority currently tearing up Parliament’s lawn are the unwelcome arrival of Trumpism in New Zealand.
IAIN MCGREGOR/STUFF
Police have been impotent to deal with protesters, despite destruction of property, intimidation of locals and threats of violence.
It was an extreme far-right ideology that attacked democracy and normalised violence against progressive agendas, liberal cultures and the media. But, beyond destroying the institutions of the state from within, it was aimless.
The Wellington protesters are creating mayhem for a pointless demand. Most reasonable people accept mandates have an end-point. It is impossible to give a calendar date, but they were never forever. It’s simply that we aren’t yet out of the Covid woods.
The protest shares all of Trump’s worst characteristics: childish behaviour, wild lies, insult-spewing, ignorance, extravagant promises and unreasonable demands. There is a disrespect for elite norms and predilection for conspiracy theories.
Trumpism was “what the president believes on any particular moment on any particular day about any particular subject”, Ron Christie, a Republican analyst and former White House staffer, once said.
IAIN MCGREGOR/STUFF
The confusing scrawl of messages chalked on the Beehive walls.
The freedom convoy has the same maundering messaging. Is it anti-mandate, anti-vax, anti-science, anti-5G, anti-Semitic, anti-the people who “killed” Jeffrey Epstein? It is all these things and more.
There are swastikas, QAnon references and a cartoon frog that is a global symbol of hate. Their iconography and rhetoric runs the full gamut of lunatic to downright evil, with notes of Nazism, white supremacy. These were all features of Trump rallies.
Chant hare krishna, grow herbs, practice yoga and smoke the peace pipe all you like. The minute you pitch your tent next to a swastika, a noose swinging for politicians and journalists, and extremist Kelvyn Alp, you are aligned.
Worse still, you are being exploited to cloak the fact this protest is being manipulated by extremists. Anyone claiming there is no dark edge to this sinister sit-in is blind or lying to you.
Over the past fortnight, it has felt like New Zealand is stumbling blindly down the same path.
Did we escape the political turmoil wreaked by Trump, Brexit, and the march of the far right across Europe? Only to have it creep up on us as we stumble, exhausted, stressed and miserable to the tail end of the pandemic?
The small but vocal minority currently tearing up Parliament’s lawn are the unwelcome arrival of Trumpism in New Zealand.
IAIN MCGREGOR/STUFF
Police have been impotent to deal with protesters, despite destruction of property, intimidation of locals and threats of violence.
It was an extreme far-right ideology that attacked democracy and normalised violence against progressive agendas, liberal cultures and the media. But, beyond destroying the institutions of the state from within, it was aimless.
The Wellington protesters are creating mayhem for a pointless demand. Most reasonable people accept mandates have an end-point. It is impossible to give a calendar date, but they were never forever. It’s simply that we aren’t yet out of the Covid woods.
The protest shares all of Trump’s worst characteristics: childish behaviour, wild lies, insult-spewing, ignorance, extravagant promises and unreasonable demands. There is a disrespect for elite norms and predilection for conspiracy theories.
Trumpism was “what the president believes on any particular moment on any particular day about any particular subject”, Ron Christie, a Republican analyst and former White House staffer, once said.
IAIN MCGREGOR/STUFF
The confusing scrawl of messages chalked on the Beehive walls.
The freedom convoy has the same maundering messaging. Is it anti-mandate, anti-vax, anti-science, anti-5G, anti-Semitic, anti-the people who “killed” Jeffrey Epstein? It is all these things and more.
There are swastikas, QAnon references and a cartoon frog that is a global symbol of hate. Their iconography and rhetoric runs the full gamut of lunatic to downright evil, with notes of Nazism, white supremacy. These were all features of Trump rallies.
Chant hare krishna, grow herbs, practice yoga and smoke the peace pipe all you like. The minute you pitch your tent next to a swastika, a noose swinging for politicians and journalists, and extremist Kelvyn Alp, you are aligned.
Worse still, you are being exploited to cloak the fact this protest is being manipulated by extremists. Anyone claiming there is no dark edge to this sinister sit-in is blind or lying to you.
IAIN MCGREGOR/STUFF
The “freedom” camp throwing a tantrum on Parliament’s lawn.
Trump didn’t need a grassroots organisation. He harnessed his celebrity to garner relentless media attention. The former US president was popularised and legitimised in naive and breathless coverage that normalised and whitewashed a fascistic politics.
The “freedom” protest has attracted its fair share of has-been and wannabes, desperate to raise their profile. They wilfully ignore the true nature of what is unfolding in the shadow of the Beehive, and give a megaphone to disinformation to build a social media following, boost fringe online platforms, or desperately recover their relevance. It is at once pathetic and dangerous.
We have all made sacrifices for the greater good. The freedom convoy is not the dispossessed and disenfranchised of America’s Rust Belt. It is frustrating in the extreme to see these people portrayed as the innocent or misguided victims of a cruel state, or economic disparity.
They exercised their freedom of choice and rejected the vaccine. Now they are throwing a tantrum on the lawn because they don’t like the consequences.
‘Good Kiwis’ do not intimidate schoolkids, make death threats, terrorise neighbourhoods, damage public property and bring small businesses to their knees. This is not our Springbok tour moment, and these people are not noble freedom fighters. This is Trumpism.
Omicron is about to overwhelm us, just as we are burnt out. The social responsibility and cohesion that helped us beat back Covid-19 and saved countless lives is starting to fray. These agents of chaos are agitating to exploit that. It will likely end in violence, just as Trump’s presidency did.
This Trump spillover is a new virus. But we can guard against that too.
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