Labour 6.0: The Politics of Fear
July 16, 2020
By NZB3
Wow, so this is how it’s going to be? What’s worse, the lack of imagination or the resort to force?
Let’s back up and start this post again..
Yesterday, the Opposition party, National, enthroned a new leader. I wrote about that new leader’s potential first moves (ref. Judith’s Gambit.) As predicted, Judith Collins’ campaign has the first-date inertia of a fresh contender and her preferred Prime Minister score already exceeds Jacinda Ardern’s own at this early stage¹. What will Ardern’s first response to having this challenger be?
“Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern delivered a speech on Wednesday laying out the Government’s plan in the event of a COVID-19 re-emergence in the community as is being seen in Australia and around the world.”
“The aim here is to contain the spread away from other areas to avoid the whole country having to put in place restrictions so we can remain at alert level 1 nationally, depending on the evidence of risk of spread outside the region,” Ardern said.- Jacinda Ardern’s COVID-19 re-emergence plan: The scenario that could lead to nationwide lockdown; Newshub 15/7/2020
This is the politics of fear! Wow, so this is how it’s going to be? What’s worse, the lack of imagination or the resort to force?
Ardern’s opening gambit against Collins is to scare the country, threaten it with more Lockdown. More of this COVID spook! The desperate hope of this Labour tactic is to associate the presence of Collins with the plague danger. They knew they had to dampen Collins’ debut poll bump with something and this is what they came up with!
Unless Labour grow a strategic brain (slim chance, but they might be able to outsource one) this is what the election will be about. Labour will campaign on fear that only they can save you from, National will campaign on that fear being behind us and it’s time to ski and fly and work again in the summertime of 2021.
Labour have started off this way but surely they know this fear cannot be sustained? They can’t ride that out for the next 64 days! Who’s afraid of COVID now? Who’s afraid of Phil Goff’s make-believe Auckland water shortage? Only a rapidly diminishing amount of hard-core r-selected people are still invested in what is rapidly becoming a past cultural era. We’re into the Honour Culture times now. The swing-voter will come in behind New Zealand being open for business. The remains of the Victims and Slaves will Boogaloo to the communes for the next 15 years or so. Time’s up.
New Zealanders have had it with COVID. They’ve had it with your virus doctor, your masks, your health theatre, your “kindness,” your Lockdowns, your economic wrecking, your hand sanitiser, your purge of economic activity. Your gun confiscations and misplacings, your ‘kindly’ police visits….Nobody’s downloading your silly phone app or using it. We gave you 2020, you’re not going to take 2021, Labour.
Hate to say it but I don’t think Labour have anything else to offer. They’re not intelligent and capable enough to do anything else on Day 1 of this campaign, this true election campaign, that began on the morning of Wednesday 15 July 2020. They can’t debate Judith Collins, they can’t contend with her in a news studio, they have no policy or credibility; Only fear.
I don’t think I can go wrong betting that Labour lack imagination or desperation so, yeah, I think we’ll go with that forecast.
The next 64 days will be about crisis. Labour will try to make you afraid. If COVID wont do it they’ll draw some other contrived rubbish from the hat. Can’t make White Island blow up again, that would be ideal. Can’t let Brenton Tarrant escape to perform another massacre, although that would also be politically expedient. What can they do that will carry them to the election? Wait for it, it’s coming.
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1 Collins 53% vs Ardern 47%; Ref. Newshub
Image ref. One Term Ardern; SB; Whale Oil
Update: “Regional lockdowns on cards…A role for the military”;Checkpoints, soldiers, door-to-door testing: NZ’s new Covid outbreak plan; The Spinoff; MSN
Update: ” Boldness and imagination is not to be expected from this government – and Judith Collins knows it….With considerable justification, however, Collins is betting that such a recovery plan is beyond the capacity of the 2020Labour Party.”; The Judith Collins-Led National Party: Be Scared – Be Very Scared; Bowalley Road
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