The Lockdown Election
August 12, 2020
By NZB3
All my bags are packed, I’m ready to go to Auckland. I’ve got snow chains in the car because to get to Christchurch airport I must cross the Southern Alps. A rental car is waiting for me today in Auckland and a burst of effort should get enough work done for me to be done by Saturday. Wouldn’t you know it, the Prime Minister has just Locked Down that city for 3 days! Last time this happened I barely made it out. This time I can’t get in!
Politics of Lockdown
I was not alone in anticipating Labour 6.0 reaching for the Lockdown card. My hope was that they could decide the General Election (37 days from now) without going beyond propaganda and scare tactics but I knew if Labour started losing in the polls then only Lockdown would save them. So here we are. Let’s look at how Jacinda Ardern is playing her game…
“As of noon…Auckland will move to level 3 for three days until midnight on Friday.”- Covid 19 coronavirus: Auckland in lockdown, rest of country in level 2 – Four cases of community transmission; NZ Herald
The basic formula is:
Pretense => Lockdown => Testing => More Cases => Fear => Election Victory
Labour aren’t trying to be popular, they’re trying to be re-elected due to fear.
“We have come too far to go backwards”- Ardern
Ardern pretends not to be thinking about re-election, almost as if she didn’t know we were having one. Actually, the above is an election slogan. Ardern is referring to Collins as “backwards.” Collins may be “strong” but Ardern is “strong and kind.”
Masks. In Lockdown 1 masks were optional, just an idea. There is no medical reason why anyone should have a mask except that they are infected and (despite being out in public) wish to spare others from their disease. In Lockdown 2, masks are mandatory. Not because the science has changed but because, politically, they’re an important signal of the required paranoia.
“We’ve done this before and we can do it again,” – Ashley Bloomfield; NPR (11 August)
“But we had also prepared for it. And as a team, we have also been here before. We know if we have a plan and stick to it, we can work our way through very difficult and unknown situations.”- Jacinda Ardern; ibid
“We can do this. We’ve done it before, right? And we will do it again.” – Siouxise Wiles, TVNZ (12 August)
Listen to all the propaganda trying to Call Back to the national Lockdown earlier in the year. Labour 6.0 spinners¹ are all talking like that in the media today, on-message with what Ardern and Bloomfield said in the Lockdown announcement last night.
To win this election, Labour 6.0 need to keep that old association alive. They need us in the mindset of the first Lockdown when Ardern was trusted and it seemed reasonable and we obeyed. It’s got nostalgic airs now, like a national holiday we look back on fondly. We all have our stories, we all shared an experience. It wasn’t worn out or old back in March and April 2020, it was new and even a little bit exciting. That’s how Labour 6.0 need us to think about them again now, as we vote.
Pretense => Lockdown => Testing => More Cases => Fear => Election Victory
The best real-life polling on Labour’s stirring up of the much-needed anxiety and paranoia is panic buying. To ensure this, a cunning bit of reverse psychology was employed last night that led to instant success.
The Prime Minister prompted panic buying by telling everyone not to do it. Before the night was through, supermarkets that were still open started attracting massive queues. Online click’n collect shopping crashed through over-use.
Swing voters for Labour 6.0 are lining up now because they are afraid of what the Prime Minister has told them. These guys don’t regulate like you and me, they’re not Anarchists, they’re Statists. They’re in-the-now, reflexive, anxious people. They’ll calm down when they get some physical stuff back to their houses. A horde of toilet paper is their peace of mind.
It’s just the paranoid reaction Labour 6.0 need and have engineered.
—
1 Baker has been spinning hard today on the news. He’s supposed to be a medical professional. However, he’s been hard-out helping Labour to Call Back to their publicly successful Lockdown 1.0 and to brand their political rivals as “complacent” and “smug”; “Otago University epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker said there was a sense of complacency – “even smugness” – in New Zealand that Covid-19 wouldn’t return to our communities, while it raged around the world.”- Coronavirus Covid-19: Call for ‘mask days’ and outbreak drills; NZ Herald (6 August 2020)
Note: What can National do? By the rules of improv’ comedy they can’t simply say “This is a hoax” but must “say yes” to Lockdown II. Judith Collins’ only move is to say “Yes, and…” in some fashion. “Yes, and this Government should never have let it go this far.” And, “Yes, another Lockdown is required so this Government clearly can’t keep you safe.” Trouble with that is, when it comes to COVID or any crisis the pair of hands voters will always choose is the incumbent. National’s only chance is to move the conversation off COVID. And Labour’s only chance is to do whatever it takes to stop that move occurring until the 37 days are up.
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