Ardern Is a Symptom, Not the Problem

Today’s post was prompted by an article by Guy Hatchard, published on the Daily Telegraph that I saw being shared on Twitter. It was labelled as a “chilling read” and very “scary” by many a commentator. Curious, I took a look and what I read was a well-written piece that contained a bunch of truth and even some insights I felt were very on point. There was just one big problem: the article was pro-Ardern propaganda.

“But Jack!” I hear you say, “It says she’s an extremely capable evil mastermind, fooling the world and furthering her own sinister agenda! How is that pro-Ardern propaganda?” Well, dear strawman, read on and I shall endeavour to explain. The following is based on recent writings from people some of you may be familiar with. I don’t mean to pass off their ideas as my own: only to present them in a New Zealand context because I have not seen anybody else doing so.

Ardern’s name is featured a whopping 17 times in the piece; the only other two names being Helen Clark and Tony Blair in passing. The focus is all on her. She is described as having a “mesmerising” public persona, solely responsible for a “transformation in the style of government, media control, science funding, intellectual standards, and international relations unprecedented in the Western world”, and as controlling “the media and science dialogue” that surrounds us. She is an all-powerful, big-brother-type figure, fooling the world and leading New Zealand down a dark path from which there may be no return.

Except that’s not quite true, is it? Don’t get me wrong: I’m no fan. I do not write to diminish her significant personal responsibility. I believe Ardern has done enough wrong that exiling her and her family to Pitcairn Island never to be heard from again would be letting her off easy. But she is far from the hyper-capable evil genius that this article portrays her to be. Even if you got rid of her today and replaced her with someone more capable (if a little balder), things would roll on largely in the same direction, perhaps just a little more slowly and politely. Most people I interact with online seem to get this on some level.

I take particular issue with the use of the word ‘control’ in Hatchard’s article. Control implies some kind of top-down communication: that Ardern gives the orders and the ‘bought’ media dutifully carries them out. While nobody can rule that out, it seems clear to me that orders are barely necessary. Why? Let’s do a little thought experiment.

I like Star Wars (yes, even the last one). In fact, so do a bunch of people my age and in my socioeconomic bracket. Now imagine I was in government. Next imagine people around my age from my socioeconomic bracket were in the media and, after a 16-year break, a new Star Wars movie came out in 2022. Liking Star Wars, I would really want everyone to go see that new Star Wars movie so it made a bunch of money and they would make a sequel. In order to accomplish this, I might really want the media to write nice things about that movie to get people to go and see it.

However, also liking Star Wars, the media would want to write nice things about that movie of their own accord, because they too would really want the new Star Wars movie to do well. I could order the media to write that way, but if I was caught it would look bad. I wouldn’t need to anyway. Why? Because the media and I want the same things. Our interests are aligned. Why would I risk my reputation by ordering them to do something they want to do and were going to do anyway?

What about the funding Ardern provides to the media? Isn’t that a bribe? Perhaps. But there are limits to bribery and the funding can just as easily be interpreted as a reward for doing what they were already doing: supporting Ardern and her interests. If Hitler himself stepped into the highest office in the land tomorrow and gave the media twice the funding that Ardern gave them, do you think we’d see a bunch of articles about how the Holocaust might have been exaggerated start to show up? Maybe one or two, but mostly you’d see a bunch of journalists resigning or media outlets rebelling. Ardern’s funding is greasing the media’s wheels and simply enabling them at best.

You can apply the same logic to Ardern’s supposedly “mesmerising” public persona. The international media did not fawn all over her because she was so charismatic: that was a small bonus. They fawned all over her because she’s a female progressive world leader who was doing things that they like: locking down the plebs, duping them into dodgy vaccines and generally furthering an agenda that they agree with. If Ardern woke up tomorrow and decided actually free speech and human rights were good things, her public persona would count for nothing. The same international community that fawned all over her would forget New Zealand existed, if not begin to smear her outright. We see this all the time: two years ago Elon Musk was getting puff pieces in Rolling Stone, now CNN says he thinks the rules don’t apply to him and he is under investigation by the feds. He changed his mind and now he’s out of the club and Ardern would be too.

Which brings us to something that Hatchard very much gets right: Ardern’s use of exclusion as a means of control. Except it isn’t just Ardern that does this. They all do. Excluding people that don’t agree with you politically from organisations that you control is how these people work and from a Machiavellian perspective it’s a good idea. I for one would never want to hire a fan of the worst movie ever. Unfortunately they govern only for their own ingroup, they govern poorly and they insist on governing everyone which means everyone outside the club (and plenty inside) suffer. Their stubbornness in adhering to their own flawed ideas no matter their disastrous consequences and unwillingness to consider ideas outside of their own dogma can be seen as just another form of gross incompetence. How much Ardern is conscious of exclusion as a political tool and how much just comes naturally to her as a member of the cult is up for debate.

In closing, any article that hypes up the actions and abilities of our enemies is doing their work for them. They are good at some things (propaganda for one), but really bad at others (understanding people outside their ingroup, science, governance, etc). They are limited, fallible and mortal. This is not to say they are not dangerous: their ideology and the policies that flow from it are toxic and one should take care not to end up singled-out, smeared as a far-right extremist and imprisoned for hate speech. It is probably best, however, not to get too hung up on the prominent individuals like Ardern, but instead keep on spreading truth, making friends and otherwise batten down the hatches to wait out this global storm of stupidity which will someday, hopefully soon, end itself in due time.