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Go Winston!

Entry 2394, on 2025-04-24 at 12:30:49 (Rating 4, Politics)

Populism is defined as "noun [mass noun] a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups." The word has that specific meaning, and it should be a neutral term, but it is often used as an insult, or as an indication of political naivety or ignorance, but is that fair?

It doesn't matter what political view you choose, you will always find some people who follow it through ignorance, habit, or some other negative reason, and I don't see any reason to think that populism should be any different. I know many people who support a particular party yet cannot really give me any good reason why - it's just what they do - so populists are really no different.

The reason I am discussing this subject is the apparently increasing global prominence of parties and politicians who are labelled "populist". These might include Trump, Farage, and our own (that is New Zealand's) Winston Peters and his party, New Zealand First.

So populism is for giving people what they want, and being against the influence of "elites". No doubt there are occasions where these elites either don't exist at all, except in conspiracy theories, or are genuinely in the best position to make decisions on public policy, but there are also situations where this suspicion of elites is fully justified. And giving people what they want is what democracy is all about, isn't it?

So, in general, I don't see populism as being any worse than any other political view, and better than a lot of them. I voted for our libertarian party, Act, at the last election, but NZ First is also an option for me, so I am certainly not personally against it.

Winston's latest political ploy is to attack woke-ism, and I'm sure you know if you read this blog, that that is exactly what I have been doing for a while now, so I approve of this strategy. Note, that I am aware that this is a political move to gain popularity for the next election in (presumably) about 18 months time, but if tackling issues many people are concerned about results in a party becoming more popular, I have no problem with that.

Probably the most common criticism of this strategy is that it is removing the focus on more practical issues people are concerned with, especially the so-called "cost of living crisis", but I have two responses to that: first, it is possible to tackle more than one problem simultaneously, so attacking woke politics doesn't mean we ignore economic issues; and second, woke politics is a mindset that affects everything else, so it might not be possible to fix our economic problems if we don't fix the underlying ideology.

For example, arguably the major cause of expensive living costs is climate change policies. These divert large amounts of funding away from more immediate needs, like health and education, and they also push prices up, especially for energy, as we shut down fossil fuel sources and make climate mitigation payments.

I need to add my standard disclaimer here: I think climate change is happening, I think there is a good chance that a major part of it is human caused, but I don't think the way we are trying to fix the problem is effective, because it involves classic woke politics: virtue signalling (common woke behaviour) rather than doing anything genuinely practical.

Winston's latest populist cause is for New Zealand to follow the UK's lead and define what a woman (and man, I guess, but who cares about them) is in law. The usual recommended definition is something like "an adult human biological female". While this may seem completely unrelated to climate policy and the cost of living, all of these woke ideological points are linked, so attacking one weakens everything else.

Of course opposition politicians, like Chris "A woman is someone who regards themself as a woman" Hipkins is pushing back against this, and that's exactly what they are expected to do as the opposition, so I have no problems with that, but the arguments against the idea seem a bit weak to me.

Winston has also increased his attacks on the media. After a recent interview on Radio New Zealand he posted on X: "News flash Corin. We can't force you to stop being so delusionally woke. The sooner you and your mates wake up and stop being so out of touch the sooner our country will get back to some common sense. Welcome to the front line of the war on woke. PS Corrin, you keep wondering why the media have record low levels of trust from the public. Keep it up champ. See how it's going to end for you."

Corrin is the RNZ interviewer he clashed with, and Winston is right: RNZ is delusionally woke, and there is very low trust in the media. In the same interview he did seem to threaten RNZ's funding, which I think is going too far, but he wouldn't have the numbers to push that defunding through anyway, so I guess it was more a rhetorical point than anything else.

If populism is naturally against woke-ism then I can't see what the problem is. Maybe only a vocal minority are woke, maybe the "elites" really are behind it, maybe the majority really do know what a woman is (unlike the leader of the opposition). We've had enough time to live through the woke era and evaluate it. It has been rejected, and if a politician wants to empower the majority view then I'm all for it. Go Winston!

Comment 2 (8217) by OJB on 2025-04-25 at 22:28:56: (view earlier comments)

Well, sure. I would agree with most of that. In my opinion NZF is certainly more respectable than the Greens or TPM. Don't let anyone tell you who is OK to vote for and who isn't. As I said in the post, populism is no less legitimate than any other political perspective, and more legitimate than many.

Comment 3 (8218) by EK on 2025-04-26 at 16:20:52:

I prefer to keep populism and Winston as separate entities which only partly overlap. Winston, a political character all of his own, thrives on abrasiveness and on keeping his Muldoon-inspired (and therefore by definition outdated) war with the media going – unfortunately at the expense of articulating clearly his ideas and motivations, which isn’t quite what we want in a democracy. Whether this is characteristic for populism is debatable. Populism is often used to characterise political naivety, not to say stupidity, for a reason. See for instance so-called populism of right-wing parties (including Hungary’s Orban) within the EU cosying up to Putin and Russia, both no friends of free Europe.

Comment 4 (8219) by OJB on 2025-04-26 at 17:00:02:

Yes, I have said on many occasions that I understand the limitations of political labels, like "populist", although that is used so often to describe NZ First that I think everyone connects the two already, anyway. I don't buy the connection between populism and political naivety. I think it is contrary to the political elite class, which are often followed mindlessly by many, and are the cause of so many of the problems we have today, so you could make a case to say it is anything but naive.

Comment 5 (8220) by EK on 2025-04-26 at 17:25:57:

So the naive populism that led to the election of Trump whose politics now begin to hurt exactly his voters (and Musk and the whole world), does not shout out "stupid"? Viva plutocracy, viva oligarchy! I'd like to see you make a case.

Comment 6 (8221) by OJB on 2025-04-26 at 17:40:36:

Trump is trying to make things better for the "working class" although it is debatable whether what he is doing is the right thing. I am prepared to give hm some time and see if the tariffs work longer term. One thing is for sure: conventional politics hasn't worked, and people are looking for something different. Of course, there is a chance that what is different will be worse! BTW, populism isn't necessarily my preferred flavour of politics, I am more a libertarian, although even that is complicated. I'm just saying it doesn't deserve the negativity it gets. Representative democracy is about government for the people. Populism, at least theoretically, does that best.

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