Just re-read Nicky Hagers 'Dirty Politics' book from 10 years ago. Those tactics haven't gone away. #nzpol One of the key aims of negative politics is to stop people participating in politics. Exhaust us. Lower turnout is a strategy My take is to hang in there and do what I can. Tnanks Nicky. - ThreadSky

dialogcrm.bsky.social • 4 days ago

Just re-read Nicky Hagers 'Dirty Politics' book from 10 years ago. Those tactics haven't gone away. #nzpol

One of the key aims of negative politics is to stop people participating in politics. Exhaust us. Lower turnout is a strategy

My take is to hang in there and do what I can. Tnanks Nicky.

Comments

telesonixseeker.bsky.social•3 days ago

Thanks. With today’s SCOTUS set back I was giving in to despair.

grumpy0ldman84.bsky.social•3 days ago

💪

elegantpride.bsky.social•3 days ago

janiemb.bsky.social•3 days ago

They do exhaust me. I'm sick of them.

I'm motivated to vote them out ASAP.

michaelg1962.bsky.social•4 days ago

Those tactics haven't gone away because they worked: the Right defeated the Centre-Right and Progressive Left and holds near-hegemonic power. Of course, this setting is incapable of innovation and fresh thinking; it is also incapable of inspiring the people.

tonywelly.bsky.social•3 days ago

The sad thing is there is nothing to stop this rotten politics and the new incoming politicians will think it's normal.

dialogcrm.bsky.social•3 days ago

That is the long game. Poison the well. Pretend that it is all a game. Hager quotes Simon Lusk a couple of times in the book. Lusk is one of the advisors who argued that people will stop participating and that is what he wants as it favours the hard right.

sjponeill.bsky.social•3 days ago

Encourage people to gace a crack at running for local govt this year especially for local/community boards coz that's where cookers get their feet in the door...

worldmodeler.bsky.social•3 days ago

https://www.modelingforchange.com/poliscarcity.html

macksteele.bsky.social•3 days ago

Who is paying and working to deconstruct America?

cmirar.bsky.social•3 days ago

📌

tombutlin.bsky.social•4 days ago

I've read it many times and it still shocks me. So many of the lead characters are still lurking

dialogcrm.bsky.social•3 days ago

With NZ being so small I have met more than a few of the people in the book. I'd guess that some of them are doing more than lurking. Voters need to reclaim politics and not write it all off because that is what the "bad actors" actually want out of all this.

gran-777.bsky.social•3 days ago

Good read! Thanks for the heads up. It brought back books and information I gained from the late 50's and early 60's, for me, that are so applicable today. History, so important. Heather Cox Richardson is very good about giving background to current events.

tom2050.bsky.social•3 days ago

lotts.bsky.social•3 days ago

It has become far worse in that aside from a few tiny independents there is no media challenging the powerful. And participating in politics means being tricked into believing you are participating in democracy. A democracy that has been purchased by the wealthy. A pretence that there is a way to

lotts.bsky.social•3 days ago

vote for your interests as a working class person. We don’t even have a path to getting big money out. There is no voting our way out of this.

dialogcrm.bsky.social•3 days ago

Hi Sara - I hear you but the idea that politics is NOT some kind of useless game is one of the key points of the book.

We can vote our way out of this. It is not easy at all. Every so often though a Chloe Swarbrick or AOC breaks through and we need to support them.

lotts.bsky.social•3 days ago

AOC who immediately capitulated to the establishment achieving nothing of meaningful political value for the people who originally got her elected? Ok. I don’t want people who can speak well. I want policy. So how many more decades to do you it will take? I don’t have that many left.

dialogcrm.bsky.social•3 days ago

Hi Sara, I live in NZ. I don’t know that much about AOC and only used her as an example of inspiration. The Greens here have had a few policy wins but it is tough.

lotts.bsky.social•3 days ago

There is absolutely no change coming for the working class, if at all, certainly not from within the wealthy owned self described centre left parties. Those parties use people like AOC to get working class people to participate only. What do you perceive is going to change to suddenly get policy?

m2z14.bsky.social•3 days ago

Thanks for that insightful page. Her concise and astute analysis is perfect. It is more binary logic than opinion.

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