That phrase grew out of the rise of the so-called New Left in the 1960’s, a movement that could no longer stomach standing with the old Marxist Left.
Not with the blood-soaked creatures like Stalin and Mao that were that faction when in power, but also not with the Western Left that insisted, as per Marx, that everything boiled down to the Class Warfare created by the economic dialectic.
No, the New Left insisted that there were other dialetics at work; sexual and gender, ethnic and racial, etc, along with all the cultural goods they created and then carted into the future as baggage.
And it would all have to be analysed, critically dismantled, deconstructed – and burned to the ground in a sort of Cultural Year Zero from which a new society would arise like the Phoenix. Incidentally the only thing unique about the Cambodian Year Zero was the proportionate death toll: from the Jacobins to Lenin to Mao the concept had always been around and pursued, for the simple reason that it was felt to be necessary to the rise of the new society.
So nowadays what job you do, the car you drive, whether you drive one at all, the house you live in, the school you send your kids to (or whether you send them at all), the steak and eggs that you eat, …. everything is political in ways beyond even the dreams of the 1960’s New Left. The reason this has to be that way is rather similar to the reason behind Year Zero and other Communist Revolutions, and that is that the resulting decisions have to be enforced politically, and they must be enforced forever; no backsliding allowed.
To that end I had to roll my eyes at this latest post from DPF on Kiwiblog, We must never go down this path, in which he links to an NBC report (of course) discussing the upcoming US Mid-Term elections, indications that it has the highest voter interest of any such election and one possible reason for that:
What’s more, 80% of Democrats and Republicans believe the political opposition poses a threat that, if not stopped, will destroy America as we know it.
DPF comments:
I hope New Zealand never ends up like this.
I am passionate about politics. I think generally policies of the centre-right are much better for New Zealand. But we must never regard those we disagree with on policy grounds as enemies who threaten the country. The vast majority of people in politics have good intentions.
Or as another National person said:
Fortunately New Zealand politics is not in that state. There is still a fair measure of bipartisanship which I think is essential in a healthy democracy.
I’ve already commented on this over there to the effect that this is not new but has been developing for twenty years, that Trump’s 2016 election as President was merely a symptom of it, and that New Zealand will not be immune to it because the beloved objective of bi-partisanship cannot survive everything being political and the fact that the Left’s basic assumption about the Right – all of the Right, including National – is that they don’t have good intentions.
As for NZ, I have bad news for you; we’re moving in this direction – or have you not noticed the last two years of silencing and demonisation, courtesy of the government and their MSM allies (and academia) across a range of issues.
It could be stopped if the Right is willing to really fight back (argue back) against the rising screams of “racist”, “xenophobe”, “transphobe”, etc.
What are the odds? From my perspective both National and ACT are where the GOP was in 2003. All I think we’ll see will be tone policing of the Right from various Right-wing figures. It’s not funny to see former National Party politicians and activists use the Lefty term, “Denier” on two issues.
But I think this review of the destruction of a popular – even beloved – fifty-year old TV show tells us more about what’s going on in our societies than mere political polling, or elections for that matter. Just watch The Critical Drinker for nine minutes.
However, having introduced the topic of media culture I was sadly reminded of the fact that DPF was super-excited by the Star Wars prequels, the new Rings of Power and all the rest of this bullshit, which means he doesn’t get it either.
No Minister 
“Man is a political animal” – Socrates
That post is hypocrisy – DPF argues just for the establishment UniParty not to eat itself
Woe betide though any politician standing under an overtly Nazi or Communist manifesto – what direction would his phraseology take the characteristics he decries in his post?
“OK” you may say to yourself , “fair enough”
But what about a Party whose guiding philosophy was derived from Conservative Christian values? Might not that be deemed as big a threat?
DPF began his blogging career positioning himself as an iconoclast but he has morphed into the ultimate Establishment mouthpiece pinstriped to the skin
Sadly Andrei you are correct about DPF. He is fiscally conservative, but on almost every other facet he is a man of the Left. Most of his posts are really about supporting his faction to have the power of the Treasury benches to manage things more efficiently.
He rarely, if ever, pushes back on the welfare state or identity politics except when extremis is reached by the Left in these areas. Like his former Overlord, John Key, who talked a good talk about WFF – but once the Nats had power it was just curtailed and not removed.
Tom and his constant reference to the ratchet effect of Labour governments is correct.
Yes sadly Andrei you nailed about DPF just another leftist masquerading as centre right.
Trev you are right too in my book. To me Key was a great disappointment. He talked a great game which gave me hope.
He wasted the tremendous political capital he had, tweaking the Labour line and not doing what was necessary. I do concede though that he had a difficult problem thrown at him ie the earthquake, which was handled well.
But overall a wasted opportunity. I think though the right approach is to join Nation and try to make changes from within.
That I think will be very hard with the latest incumbent. Obama his favorite president indeed. That’s a big red flag for me.
My god I cannot believe I’m agreeing with Andrei AGAIN.