Open to all
It’s hard to describe it all. I mean, most people don’t even care. They don’t understand. It’s too opaque and theoretical. But my gut screeches.
OPINION
Last week, I realised there’s only 70 + days left until the US Election and while the Democrats and left are buoyed by the new ticket, my senses weren’t so sure.
There’s something far more sinister this time round and people like Bernie Sanders1, the Obamas, and many others certainly seem aware. (I encourage you to see Footnote 1 for relevant quotes)
In the clip above, Donald Trump speaks his own projection: “(The left will) lie, and steal and cheat on elections. And will do anything possible, whether legally or illegally to destroy the country.”
And for Trump and his people, the left are called “radical left thugs who live like vermin in the confines of our country.”
What’s at stake besides extermination? Christo-fascism, the takeover of the US government, cruel policies, wholesale repeals of environmental protections, and attacks on the fabric of democracy and society as we know it.
All under the banner of prosperity, family, God and democracy - no less.
But fortunately, so to speak, it’s far - halfway across the world, right up there in America, the land of the rich and famous, poor and ordinary, wild and newsworthy.
Yes?
Well I think what’s far is not far at all, and what’s close has already arrived.
Dr Bryce Edwards wrote a great summary last week, detailing results of a survey of Kiwis on who they prefer to win in the US election - Trump or Harris. And the upshot of it all is that the numbers of people in Aotearoa who would vote for Trump has grown fairly significantly.
In rural NZ, Trump even has a 4% lead. And unsurprisingly, those who vote NZ First and ACT are most likely to favour Trump. (Full article from Dr Edwards here)
What was most significant for me though was the trend-line.
The numbers that favour Trump increased substantively per one of the polls, and while we can parse the reasons for that, all I see is the bigger frame.
The same manifestations we see in the US today are the same seeds being scattered across NZ.
Seymour - who speaks nice words and claims to act with noble intentions - is at the forefront of government implementation. But he’s not doing it alone - he can’t.
He’s buffered on the side by Coalition partners who ultimately seem to benefit from the division and ideology he wants to sow.
While folks hold out for Winston to unsettle the apple cart, knowing Winston’s association with Brexiteers in a prior election and the blatant, unfearful corruption from his Ministers backed by his Coalition partners, something tells me Winston is comfortable with big bucks.
And Seymour stands on the shoulders of far right wing platforms which are extremely successfully injecting the cult of US politics and division into our DNA.
They work across social media sites as well as sending out physical letters and material. For example:
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Taxpayers Union showcasing UK conservative Dan Hannon where he talks about the Treaty and equal rights, and shares what sounds like white supremacy notes to coalition partners.
Seymour had dinner with Hannon after he listened to the speech.
Hannon:
“Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks will be much better known to any child than John Locke or John Milton..OK great, very impressive people and everything, but not really our story.
If you are a white conservative they call you a Klansman.”
A social forum that shares anti-Maori propaganda
Physical materials distributed around the country
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It’s a team effort.2
And in a representative body,
Seymour would be the main mouthpiece and channel for overseas ideas
The government (Luxon, Goldsmith, Bishop, Willis, Brown) are the arms to execute it all and the reassuring hand to tell everyone it’s in NZ’s best interests
Don Brash/Jordan Williams & far right wing platforms are the legs which give them momentum, cultivate numbers and do ugly, drop kicks
Peters is the extra kick if they need someone to appeal to crazy from the podium
Without the legs ie. populist support, they are also DOA.
You see, the far right conservative movement can’t do what it does in America the way it does there - not yet.
If Luxon, Bishop, Willis, or Seymour called the left “vermin” it wouldn’t be just another news cycle - not yet anyway - although the new normal is advancing frighteningly at pace.
Here in NZ, which is traditionally more liberal and democratic, Seymour and Luxon etc, has to do it primarily under the guise of noble words (prosperity, economy, dignity, democracy), and by stealth, so they can seamlessly position their policies and people where they want.
From private charter schools which steal resources from public education and starts the move away from accredited teachings, to sowing divisive anti-Maori movements in bad faith, to appointing alleged transphobes and Zionists to official NZ Human Rights and Race Relations Commissioner roles, to cleaning out of appointees in favour of those who mirror their ideology, to setting up a Ministry of Regulation to pave the neoliberal way - NZ is following the same patterns as that outlined in Project 20253.
i.e. appoint their people, take over government processes, implement tobacco / fossil fuel, friendly policies, crack down on the ‘wokeism’, eliminate left wing ideals e.g. environment, and call anyone who disagrees as “resistance.”4 Take opposition down if need be5
Naturally this all comes with great benefits for the likes of Peter Thiel, Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, the Koch brother(s) and others who might stand behind the new right wing movement.
Atlas is primarily fossil fuel and tobacco money driven, but it brings together a concert of people interested in far right conservative movements. That includes the Murdoch media empire, Rina Ginehart - Australia’s mining tycoon, and, particularly in the US, Christian nationalism movements that are doggedly anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ. The person most clearly linked here to date is the Gibbs family but there are definitely many more, I’d wager.
I mean give them all a hand, it’s been a bloodless coup, so far, and one that deserves Hollywood’s own script - preferably starring Tom Cruise, because although he’s a mad, unscrupulous Scientologist leader, he’s rather good at those types of subterfuge, conspiracy movies.
I knew we had an Atlas Network plant in government by the time I looked it all up, and RNZ drop kicked it into an interview. But we also saw Mihingarangi Forbes get character assassinated for daring to reveal Seymour’s Atlas connections, and Seymour and National’s foot soldiers immediately come out to spread misinformation…
… And we’re late.
The more that I see and learn, and the more actions this government takes - including its war on the environment and vulnerable, to Sean Plunkett’s calls for a “pogrom” with David Seymour present - the ideology is there. More subtle, a slightly different play, but right in play.
Last week, Sean Plunkett’s The Platform feaured far right Trump extremist, Candace Owens
Owens thinks the Holocaust is “propaganda.” And the black rights movement in America is unnecessary and an excuse because she herself has “never been a slave in this country”.
In other words, Owen’s a pretty good role model for anti-Maori affirmative rights.
Note: Plunkett is bankrolled by one of NZ’s wealthiest families: The Wright Family. Their website and social media pages feature benevolence, charities, environmental protections.
Yet they platform an arguable hate channel and persona that stands outside any and all regulatory bodies in NZ. It has to be one of the most vocal anti-Maori, pro-culture war platforms in NZ.
And they all seem so well connected.
What’s Far is Close.
It has a plan, and it’s executing it with discipline and as fast as it is able to.
Former NZ Prime Ministers are speaking up because, I suspect, they know something is very wrong too. Yesterday 1 News revealed Paul Goldsmith & Shane Jones were promising the fishing industry they would roll back Maori rights months ago on the seabed issue6 although they only raised it to the public in July - framing it as good for NZ of course.
I for one won’t be celebrating until both left and centre show more strength, unity, and clarity amongst ourselves.*
*Note: While some on the left speak earnestly about policies that could help our country improve and heal, what they miss is the tactics in play represent a different playbook. This isn’t a genuine ideological debate anymore as it was in the old days, e.g McCain vs Obama. Hopefully our lens can be updated too.
Sanders said: “When we talk about oligarchy, let us be clear about what we mean. Right now, in the United States of America, three families control more wealth than the bottom half of our country, some 160 million Americans. The top 1% own more wealth than the bottom 92% and 49% of all new income generated today goes to the top 1%. In fact, income and wealth inequality today in the United States is greater than at any time since the 1920s...
These leaders meld corporatist economics with xenophobia and authoritarianism. They redirect popular anger about inequality and declining economic conditions into violent rage against minorities — whether they are immigrants, racial minorities, religious minorities or the LGBT community. And to suppress dissent, they are cracking down on democracy and human rights…
Today, America and the world are once again moving towards authoritarianism — and the same right-wing forces of oligarchy, corporatism, nationalism, racism and xenophobia are on the march, pushing us to make the apocalyptically wrong choice that Europe made in the last century.
Today, we now see a handful of billionaires with unprecedented wealth and power.
We see huge private monopolies — operating outside of any real democratic oversight and often subsidized by taxpayers – with the power to control almost every aspect of our lives.
They are the profit-taking gatekeepers of our health care, our technology, our finance system, our food supply and almost all of the other basic necessities of life. They are Wall Street, the insurance companies, the drug companies, the fossil fuel industry, the military industrial complex, the prison industrial complex and giant agri-businesses.
They are the entities with unlimited wealth who surround our nation’s capitol with thousands of well paid lobbyists, who to a significant degree, write the laws that we live under.”
And when we talk about oligarchy, it is not just that the very rich are getting much richer. It is that tens of millions of working-class people, in the wealthiest country on earth, are suffering under incredible economic hardship, desperately trying to survive.
People like Jordan Williams and Don Brash are the provocateurs, creating campaigns of misinformation and garnering popular (populist) support e.g. on the seabed/foreshore issue.
Government are the arms and legs to execute it all once support is garnered.
Seymour tap dances to noble words like “dignity,” “human rights,” and “equal rights for all” and lets his far right platforms speak the ugly truths
Luxon and Goldsmith and Brown etc act as if centrists, and parrot the words ‘We are merely restoring NZ to a place where the peoples’ view matter’
Project 2025 - the handbook - will outlaw abortion, contraception, hammer down on LGTBQ, roll back environmental and nature protections, use military for enforcement, eliminate the Ministry of Education’s “wokeism”, take over government departments, and dictate Christian and conservative ideals through the country.
It also has obscure aspects like allowing children to work in dangerous conditions with fewer protections.
Most recently, Lester Levy called doctors and nurses who are saying frontline services are being cut part of the “resistance”. This word is echoed by Project 2025 participants as well as performers like Sean Plunkett. Interestingly, the idea was introduced by Nicole Bremner in the Levy interview.
Refer video for what they did to Mihirangi Forbes after she dared to make public David Seymour’s clear and present Atlas Network connections
I thought 1News would have been wise to emphasise that Maori rights don’t affect public access - a myth taken advantage of by many
i.e. "Customary marine title can't be sold, and free public access, fishing and other recreational activities are allowed to continue in customary marine title areas" but 1News didn’t.
What's Far Is Close & What's Close Has Already Arrived