I’ve just come back from my walk this morning and the weather is looking great. I was checking out some videos and once again we have the ‘why I left the let’ grift is still going. It is amazing the number of people who pull this stunt of “I used to be on the left but now I am [insert new branding opportunity]” while never explaining what made the consider themselves left wing in the first place. I can’t help but get the feeling that many of these people who call themselves left-wing are like those sort of people who are raised in a religion, going through the motions because “that is what is expected” while never asking themselves “why do I believe what I believe?” or even the more important question “do I actually believe what I was raised to believe?”.
It reminds me of the saying “the unexamined life is not worth living” – to hear someone saying they left the left but they never go into detail regarding what made them identity with the left in the first place. For example, Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton were both Republicans – were they Republican because that is what they actually politically believed or was it a matter of being born into an environment where that was the default political worldview for that in that particular community. It reminds me of the old saying that a fish doesn’t recognise water because that is all that it has ever known. I would say for many people they’re born into a community and accept that things happen a certain way without questioning why they happen that way.
Just to round up the post there was an interesting discussion regarding the Jacinda Ardern government and the failures of the Labour led government. As I’ve said in the past, when millions are spent on a project but there is nothing to show for it then it shouldn’t be surprised that people get jaded and vote for a National led government with a leader who was seen as a continuation of the John Key era. It is all very well to diagnose a problem such as “capitalism as failed” and “neoliberalism has failed” but when it isn’t followed up with substantive policy then it shouldn’t be surprising that many New Zealanders see you as “yet another politician who talks a big game but doesn’t deliver”.
