Let’s look on the bright side. The people voted this way (quite significantly) so they must be seeing something positive there. I already know all the downsides so let’s discuss the upsides.
so they must be seeing something positive there
I’m not so sure about that compared to just being “not Labour”.
Labour showed this term that they’re merely interested in maintaining the status quo and that all the progressive policies in the previous term came from the Greens and NZF.
Swinging back and forth between two parties that don’t significantly change anything is the system working as intended.
Neoliberalism has created managed democracy in every wealthy country the world over. You can choose “blue neoliberals” or “red neoliberals”. One is slightly more greedy, one is slightly less greedy and together they create a careful balance that keeps them from the guillotine.
The moment anyone suggests anything outside that, they’ve got a class unity the rest of us can only dream of. They’ll throw millions of dollars and every for-profit media and sleazy marketing agency they’ve got at making sure the status quo doesn’t change.
It’s why world over you keep hearing “the slightly less greedy ones aren’t doing enough, time to give the extra greedy ones a try”.
The only way out is to vote for genuinely progressive parties, routinely dumping them as neoliberals rush to metastasise within their ranks.
Unfortunately, social media is as close as we’ve ever come to mind control and AI will only refine that further.
