Derangement Syndrome

A troubling Trumpism rears its head in little old New Zealand

I feel self-conscious when I write about any kind of political subject, mainly because I don’t believe myself to have any kind of specific or unique insight.

I know what I think would be good for all. I know what I like in a political candidate. I know what kind of behaviour I see as acceptable from our elected officials. I’d like to believe my preferences are informed by common sense.

And I know that, more than anything as time goes on, and as social media informs public behaviour more and more, I find myself dismayed by the lack of care and maturity shown by politicians.

As the flippant language of tweeting - or truthing - has taken over as a normal way to behave both on and offline, sense of decorum has disappeared. Think of the way political leaders in the United States now speak to and about each other on a daily basis; whether it’s Vice President J.D. Vance cheekily referring to Senator Alex Padilla as ‘Jose’, or Secretary of State Marco Rubio telling a Democratic senator that ‘your regret for voting for me confirms I'm doing a good job’, it makes me feel uncomfortable and a little sick.

For the most part, though, I can rest easy in the knowledge that this stuff has tended to stay on the other side of the Pacific, the odd c-word from Brooke or insult from Winnie aside. When it comes down to it, I can deal with political disagreement, as long as it is done in good faith.

Trump might post about bombing Iran on Truth Social before he does the press conference and, sure, he might post about a ceasefire before anyone can verify the story, but at least our government isn’t doing that sort of thing here.

Right?

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I saw Dame Anne Salmond’s response first.

Over the past week, something remarkable has happened. The Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand has fronted an online campaign of harassment of scholars who have shared their views about his Regulatory Standards Bill, naming each of them as a ‘Victim of the Day.’

Each scholar has been accused of ‘Regulatory Standards Derangement Syndrome,’ a description borrowed from Donald Trump’s followers, who accuse his critics of ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome.’ The portraits of each scholar are placed on David Seymour’s Facebook page under this banner, and labelled ‘Victim of the Day,’ with online responses invited.

As you probably know, ACT leader David Seymour took over the mantle of Deputy Prime Minister a fortnight ago.

At a time like this, it is extraordinary that a Deputy Prime Minister here should initiate an online campaign of intimidation against university scholars, using Trumpian rhetoric and tactics to harass them for exercising their academic freedom.

Salmond isn’t some deranged conspiracy theorist; she became a dame in 1995, won the 2013 New Zealander of the Year award, received the Order of New Zealand in 2020, and works now as a professor at the University Of Auckland. Dame Anne is one of our country’s finest citizens. Dame Anne is a person whose advice you heed, a person with whom you engage in good faith discussion.

The other so-called ‘victims’ are also distinguished. Dr George Laking, University of Auckland oncology professor and public health policy expert. Former Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei, now a law lecturer at the University Of Otago. And maybe most galling of all, sitting Labour MP Willie Jackson, a person whose job is to hold the government to account, and with whom Seymour already has a debate venue - the bloody parliament building where they both work.

As far as I can see, the only deranged person here is ACT leader and current deputy prime minister David Seymour, an opportunist who has decided to exploit the rightward shift in politics by moving even further to the right and adopting hateful language from the MAGA movement. This is just the latest example; his social media pages are full of references to left losers, criticisms of the media, and snarky dismissal of real critiques of policy.

He is also a hypocrite. These attempts to publicly shame and intimidate academics in bad faith while holding a powerful government position when he previously insisted ‘there is a real need for us to have a genuine, high-quality conversation’ when he was in opposition prove it so.

And thats before you remember his party conceded they felt intimidated by a haka. Like most abusers, its only abuse if you do it.

Seymour defended the posts by downplaying the severity of the posts, saying ‘I'm going to get a bit playful and have some fun’ with critics, calling it all a joke, a bit of a lark. I would point out that not being accountable for ones actions is probably something else he learnt from Papa Trump.

Authorised by Todd Stephenson, ACT’s arts spokesman who couldn’t name a single book written by a New Zealand author when asked

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Seymour isn’t the first person to adopt MAGA-style language. Answering questions about new sanctions adopted by WINZ to punish beneficiaries who aren’t meeting their Jobseeker requirements, Social Development minister - and MP for Taupō, representing National - Louise Upston sounded positively Trumpian when she declared them “very fair and reasonable sanctions”. Here is Upston’s full statement:

“These very fair and reasonable sanctions will allow clients to continue receiving their full benefit, instead of the 50 per cent reduction they would have experienced with a financial sanction.”

You can almost hear the tiny hands waving back and forth.

Upston’s statements bothered me for an additional reason too: the use of the word ‘clients’ to describe beneficiaries. I understand that is the internal word used at WINZ, and maybe I’m being a bit soft. But here I was thinking that these ‘clients’ were real people who turn to WINZ when they are most in need.

And before you say ‘some people are ripping off the government’ - WINZ uses a traffic light system that has 98% of beneficiaries at the green light setting. Seriously, read the article again: ‘Upston said 98 percent of beneficiaries were complying with their obligations’. So why did we need to do it then?

Referring to beneficiaries as ‘clients’ dehumanises them, turns them into a number, a problem to be solved, a case to be closed. Its that simple.

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Going back even further, I remember Simeon Brown being accused of using ‘dog whistle’ language. In mid-2023, associate transport minister Kiri Allan and then-PM Chris Hipkins accused him of it around the subject of bilingual signage:

National Party transport spokesperson Simeon Brown last week criticised NZTA after it started consultation for a new range of bilingual road signs. “Signs need to be clear. We all speak English, and they should be in English,” he said, adding that he only supported place name signs being bilingual.

The party is now trying to downplay his comments.

A statement becomes a ‘dog whistle’ when its content appeals to a specific demographic of people who are predisposed to agree with it.

“It’s an official language of New Zealand. Even Christopher Luxon, when he was the CEO Of Air New Zealand, liked te reo. He liked it so much he tried to blimmin trademark the phrase, ‘kia ora’,” Allan said.

Brown has a history of this stuff. I remember being enraged at the tail end of the pandemic peak in late 2022 when he posted a photo on Facebook of himself throwing a face mask in the bin, accompanied by the word ‘freedom’, in an attempt to appeal to the Plandemic crowd.

Douchebag.

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After I wrote all this, I sat back for a moment, then I read it back - and it occurred to me why this bothers me. And I think it partly explains why disillusionment in the system is rife, why apathy is so common.

Our government institutions operate in unserious ways, our politicians are more like showmen than ever before, and our leaders openly flout the rules whenever possible. And so we’ve stopped taking them seriously.

Or I have, at least. What is the point in engaging with our democracy when those we’ve elected aren’t engaged with it either?

Parliamentary sessions and presidential terms are more often passages of time to grimace through until someone we like more comes along. We usually don’t make a fuss about anything because it feels like nobody is listening anyway. And on the occasion we do make a fuss, it’s a big fuss - an occupy-the-Parliament-Buildings-lawn sized fuss.

There’s an old Rage Against The Machine video that ends with a clip of American liberal activist Ralph Nader famously saying “turn on to politics, or politics will turn on you”. I think I’m starting to feel like politics has already turned - it turned its back on us, and now it exists not for us but for itself.

Deranged indeed.

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My favourite Ralph Nader quote is “if you always vote for the lesser of two evils, you will always have evil, and you will always have less” - let’s start voting for more.

Thanks for reading today.

Chris xo