I said I would not write about NZ politics, but when you see this sort of sad crap, it’s really hard to ignore. Chris Trotter whinges about Jacinda – v10.0:
“This Never Gets Old”, is a classic saying that is actually a positive: an implication that a joke, story, event, film or book can be watched time and again with pleasure.
But Trotter’s fading smile about the sunny skies of Jacinda is not that. It is actually the opposite: stuff that does get old, old before it’s time.
Look at the last 25 years around the Western World.
1992 – Clinton. We will finally be delivered from Reagan. A Southern Accent? LBJ has returned, with less war and more Great Society. And he’s soooo smart.
1997 – Blair. We will finally be delivered from Thatcher. And he’s handsome. And he’s sooooo smart.
1999 – Clarke. We will finally be delivered from Roger Douglas. And a Wimen. And she’s sooooo smart.
2007 – Rudd. My God, he speaks Mandarin. Not like that plonking Howard. And he’s sooooo smart.
2008 – Obama. ORGASM. We are finally delivered from Booosssshhhhh. And he’s Black. And Handsome. And he’s soooooo smart.
2015 – Trudeau. Look! What yonder halo doth break over him in this photo. And he’s handsome. And caring. And soooo sma….Ah. OK. Good enough.
And in every case these hysterical displays amidst the activists and the MSM were followed by massive disappointment, although at least Clinton and Obama got a couple of years before the True Believers began to pick away at their time in power, whispering poisonous words like “Betrayed”. And now….
2017 – Adern. We are delivered from the evils of the financial incubus, Key. And she’s a Wimen. And attractive. And baby. And she’s sooooooo smart.
And yes, the following is from Chris’s blog. I note that he jumped up and down later about some farmer holding a sign saying she was a pretty Communist and how this was an example of the bitter discourse of the Right in NZ. Well, jeez….
The Left do this to themselves.
Every.
Single.
Time.
And then they have the gall to claim or imply that they’ve learned the lessons from their past Cults of Personality with Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Mugabe, Chavez, ….
They’ve learned nothing from history, even as they get all bitter and disappointed about their latest failure – just like the time before. At least when we Righties throw some cheering to our leaders it’s after they’ve actually done something. Reagan. Thatcher. It’s why Key got the big, “Meh, yeah, you’re popular, and ……????” treatment. Bush I? II? Major? Come on.
Just as a nightcap, here’s the photo of Justin that set Chris’s heart aflame a few years ago..
IT’S ONE OF THOSE PICTURES that freeze-frames a political leader in the making. Half-turned from the enthusiastic crowd of Prince Edward Islanders he is addressing, Justin Trudeau’s upraised arm acknowledges something beyond the image’s point of reference. A pale sunlight lightly gilds the palm of his outstretched hand and highlights the features of his face.
Ewwwwwww. What is it about Lefties and their love of upraised arms? I’d bet Chris’s keyboard and screen had to be wiped down after that effort. The best you can say about it was that he was being prescient in that 2015 article, hoping against hope amidst the darkness of Key world:
Has a photographer ever frozen Nash or Ardern in that magical political moment when anyone with a beating heart knows – just knows – that this is the one to watch?
Yeah baby. Yeah!!!!
And now here we are. The eyes have dried. The fairy lights have dulled. The crowd’s roar has died in their throats to the occasional embarrassed cough and sniffle. Followers look at their feet more often, and shuffle them. What comes next? Not a Blair war surely. Not a Trudeau level of corruption. Not a Rudd revelation of near unhinged sociopathy.
Nah. Due to National being No Mates, Jacinda could win the 2020 election with just the Greens. But the fact is we already are a Social Democracy, with lot of large state institutions swallowing huge amounts of money and delivering less than expected. What’s Green-Labour going to do: install another one? Another Welfare For Families boondoggle? Sure, you could embed it, lock it in with addicts who grow dependent on such, and then have the pleasure of watching National only manage it. But they’ll just be Middle Class things, paid for (barely) by the Middle Class, with the State as the bookie on a train that’ll run off the tracks in the 2040’s.
With such prospects in front of them, her supporters will cling to their screens on election night 2020 and, if she wins, crawl off to bed not with a sense of sunny hope, but grim relief.
Beyond that, I think it’ll end more like this for Jacinda.
That’s “Madge”, Barry Humphrey’s great sidekick creation for his Dame Edna Everage: the grey, mournful, inarticulate little New Zealander. The picture above is the common fate of politicians.
But for the True Believers, which Jacindamania suggests is a much larger group than the likes of Chris and the MSM? For them it’ll be like Phil Connor’s bitter, desperate denouement in the great movie Groundhog Day:
You want a prediction about the weather, you’re asking the wrong Phil. I’ll give you a winter prediction: It’s gonna be cold, it’s gonna be grey, and it’s gonna last you for the rest of your life.
No Minister 