Joe Biden's withdrawal puts the spotlight back on Kamala and the USA's complicated relationship on race and gender

What impacts, if any, does it have on New Zealand?

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Coverage

This morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.

However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering Trump for days now, devoting significant portions of bulletin time to Trump’s speeches and/or Biden’s senility.

Why?

Not ‘why’ as in not understanding there is news and ratings value, but ‘why’ as in, there is much more newsworthy news and angles that are of value and import. There are developments right now that impacts our country’s future significantly, and Kiwis can act and assimilate those - rather than a convicted felon’s speeches, and pictures of his adoring fans over 12,500 km away.

I covered the possible reason here, when I pointed out that corporate media is almost invariably owned and/or directed by corporate billionaires. And for many of them, such as Rupert Murdoch, John Malone, Robert Mercer, and Peter Thiels, Trump is just good for their world.

And good for business.

Even then, they could show some balance.

What about the focus on Trump’s 32 felons, his past conviction showing he raped a woman, or his blueprint for America if he wins office.

That blueprint includes sacking thousands of civil servants who they believe stand in their way of an America that is forged within far right wing ideology. It outlines a plan to cut taxes, remove abortion and contraceptive pills, remove gender equality, expand presidential powers e.g. over the Department of Justice, and completely and utterly shred climate protections.

It would ramp up nuclear weapons, tap down international aid and co-operation, and make China a much more clear and present enemy (is this where Luxon got hints on going hawkish on China after his recent US trip - leading both Helen Clarke and Don Brash to heavily criticize Luxon?)

The blueprint is organised and ready for Trump-Vance in all their glory -

Is that not newsworthy to balance with?

And that mission, led by Atlas Network’s right wing ‘think tank’ Heritage Foundation, is unabated authoritarianism. Project 2025’s handbook writes:

“It is not enough for conservatives to win elections.

If we are going to rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left, we need both a governing agenda and the right people in place, ready to carry this agenda out on day one of the next conservative administration.

That is the goal of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project.

With the right conservative policy recommendations and properly vetted and trained personnel to implement them, we will take back our government,”

To be clear, Atlas Network is just a powerful right wing, big corporate, big money, pro-oil, anti-climate, anti-indigenous, pro-wealth network group.

You get to be a part of their gang if you see the world in the way they do. There are no fees to become a partner, and when you do, you get a whole host of goodies like money, training, policies, resources.

In New Zealand they go by the names Taxpayers Union, Free Speech Union, New Zealand Initiative. Jordan Williams and David Farrar are obviously closely aligned.

In the UK, their main one is Institute of Economic Affairs - they lobbied hard for Liz Truss and helped propel her to power. Truss was a true disciple and tried out many of their policies with resounding failure, costing the UK NZD $64bn in 44 days - that’s almost a quarter of our whole GDP. Not bad for a right wing think tank idealist.

In the US, they are the Heritage Foundation.

And in Canada, David Seymour’s place of training, Frontier Center of Public Research.

And to be fair to American and international media, many of them have been sounding the alarm. New York Times is on the case. Ditto Washington Post. MSNBC. Internationally, Reuters, BBC, Guardian, CBC, DW, Al Jazeera, Australia’s ABC.

Still - I wonder, if our news bulletins are going to spend a lot of time showing us pictures of Trump fans with bandages on their ears - what about the local issues? You see, I think the world already knows that Trump fans are loyal, and his voters believe he loves them and the country. It’s no longer helpful to ream that in our faces, I believe.

Here’s some ideas instead:

Climate

Yesterday, Simon Watts confirmed New Zealand is no longer on track to meet 2035 and 2050 climate emission targets. In the first three months of this year, EV sales fell 75% compared to last year, effectively tanking the EV market after National repealed the Clean Car Discount, which they mindlessly labelled as unfair.

Luckily for Luxon, his family got in on the free money before they repealed it. It’s a fascinating revelation to see the leader of the country believe taxpayer money is his “entitlement,” if he gets it, but a moral failure if others in lesser positions do.

Now Simon Watts, the same guy who told New Zealand last year that water rates would be lower than the status quo, under National’s 3 Waters model, found it hard to answer the question directly, but couldn’t get out of the clear evidence that his Government’s policies are directly contributing to higher emissions. It was also clear he wasn’t even across the details of his supposed Climate Change strategy, arguing possibilities with conflicting evidence around it, could be considered viable facts and emission reduction tactics.

There is other local news that media could breathlessly cover too if they felt it was important.

Doctors

For example, GP practices are falling over while experienced doctors and bodies try to sound the alarm to the govenment.

Shane Reti admitted earlier this year that he didn’t have any targets for GPs because that was “too challenging”. 500,000 adults and 73,000 children were unable to get an appointment last year due to shortfalls in GP numbers, as well as costs. Last year, over 90% of family doctors said they faced significant financial pressures of maintaining their practice.

Yet the Government, under the banner of ‘Labour screwed the porch’ and austerity, declined to fund GPs what they needed - and what David Seymour promised. Seymour had also promised landlords before the election they would get tax cuts, and it was the first thing their Coalition government delivered on after coming into power.

$3bn for landlords was not even a question, yet an additional $400mn to keep our doctors afloat, and help people afford healthcare, is out of the question? Isn’t that approximately 13.5% of what they gave landlords for effectively, no societal benefit? (And before we use Mr Luxon’s non-scientific, non-evidence based lines, OneRoof confirmed in March that rents had not only risen for months on end, but rents were rising at double the speeed. Bernard Hickey did a good analysis of Luxon’s claims landlord tax cuts would reduce rents too)

You see, it’s not just about subsidising doctors and patients to keep family practices viable and patients able to access healthcare - it’s also about rebuilding the entire primary practice model so that Kiwis can access health care over the short, medium and long term and in affordable and timely ways. This will also attract more doctors into family care, which is something we desperately want as a society. Ultimately these actions generate significant long terms benefits for all of society - and reduces expensive social and medical costs down the track too.

But doctors just don’t have the same political pull these days. And that is a painful statement to have to make.

Primary health providers last week rejected the Government’s lowball offer of 4%. As usual, Health Minister Shane Reti started with the sales pitch on his government, arguing they were doing more for health “than ever before.” I fail to see how that is even mildly true, once you look under the covers.

It is likely though that if the public and media don’t care enough, GP rates will simply continue to increase, more doctors will leave, more and more patients will avoid seeing a doctor if they can help it, ED rooms will become secondary bottlenecks, and family care / hospitals will deteriorate under the Government’s budget choices.

And that’s what people forget - these are choices.

Choices and choices

Austerity is always a choice, but when I look around, I no longer see an austerity driven environment. What I see are deliberate and intentional decisions to concretize private money and contracts into NZ society, and use austerity and Labour as the excuse to do so.

Breaking down public health care is just the first step to siphon people to private options. It’s hard to not see it as intentional anymore.

US matters of import

And this is where the right wing think tanks overseas are genuinely influential and where we should be focusing our attention.

The US’s direction influences ours without a doubt. Its stance on China and Russia will impact our foreign policies, and based on Luxon’s latest indications, he is a great admirer of the USA, and sees our future with theirs irrespective of leader.

Before his trip to the United States as New Zealand Prime Minister earlier this month, Luxon breathlessly told the Post:

“It's a system I know fairly well, and it's a country that I know well, and has a culture that I understand

It’s a very stimulating place. It's a country that … it always innovates, and it always comes back. And so you never, you never bet on America going down, because it will always reinvent itself and and continue to bring huge amounts of innovation and entrepreneurship to the world and and leadership to the world.”

And The Post felt it, writing, “he clearly loves and admires the United States. And he thinks he understands it.” If only our Prime Minister had even a tenth of that feeling about our own country, instead calling us a “very negative, wet, whiny, inward-looking” lotl

Back to the US -

JD Vance, Peter Thiel’s surrogate, is pro-Russia and anti-Ukraine.

The US’s direction influences us in terms of our monetary policy, trade policies, defence and arms spending, and - if Trump or his VP Vance manages to get into power, come hell or high water - that burgeoning influx of right wing culture wars may bleat louder into our spheres of influence too.

Racial profiles

And this is where I come back to Kamala Harris.

Biden has endorsed her, and she is not only a woman, a profile that Americans typically dislike in their Presidents, she is also a woman of colour.

A few days ago, media reported that Trump’s team were readying themselves for attacks on Kamala, should she be nominated. And that would be easy.

Race is an easy target for this ilk. Sexuality would be another. Gender less obvious, but still viable.

Here in New Zealand, I’ve noticed right wing forums fill up with pictures perpetuated by founding trustee Casey Costello’s organisation, Hobsons Pledge. Hobsons Pledge is ostensibly an anti-Maori affirmative action organisation.

Its interests align heavily with ACT and New Zealand First. They work together on anti-affirmative action for Maori.

See what I mean by networks? Just as ACT and National have traditionally co-operated, allowing ACT to say more outlandish things to attract those on the edges than National can, an organisation like Hobsons Pledge, can do a lot of the dirty work in fighting Maori rights, and racially profiling Maori in negative ways, now ACT are formally in Government.

Taxpayers Union can’t lean into an easy excuse to attack Maori, like it did 3 Waters, given its supposed remit is money. Jordan Williams was strategic in launching Free Speech Union, to give him more influence, money and sway, but he and his ilk can’t extend themselves into Treaty rights until it is more clearly in their wheelhouse.

Hobsons Pledge has no such boundaries when its entire mission is opposing Maori support.

They are now claiming Maori want to “steal” New Zealand’s coastline and campaigning off of that.

I don’t intend to do a deep dive right now, but I signaled a while ago, that one of David Seymour’s core missions is to overturn the Treaty of Waitangi’s Principles - and in doing so, release Iwi and indigenous influence, and undo Supreme and High Court decisions honouring the Treaty and our obligations. Guess who will benefit from that? Here’s one - TTR

Race is a harbinger of what is to come - not only in the US, but here too. It’s obvious to me now that they don’t need large swathes of the population to conform to it, they just need a sufficiently loud enough populace, clever word-smithing, and the moneyed up megaphones and outlets on their side.

Those are my opinions and I am happy to be proven wrong. Unfortunately, on matters related to this government, I have not yet seen that come to fruition.

Stay tuned and be alert.