Unearthing the mole.

The issue of who wrote the anonymous “Resistance” op ed in the NY Times (about Oval Office insiders working to thwart and buffer Executive policy-making from Trump’s impulses and excesses) has dominated the media cycle in the US since its publication. Coming on the heels of the publication of excerpts from Bob Woodward’s book Fear, which chronicles the dysfunction of the Trump White House, the search is on for the “senior official” mole. The text has been carefully parsed in order to detect grammatical patterns that could identify the author. Attention has focused on the word “lodestar” in the essay, a word that has been used repeatedly by Vice President Mike Pence in public speeches but which has not been used by other senior Trump administration officials. Focus is also on the phrase “anti-trade,” which suggests to some that someone involved in economic policy making is the author. Others have pointed to phrases in the text said to be used by other senior officials, either as proof that they wrote it or as a cover and deflection from their real identity.

Since my opinion is about as good as anyone else’s when it comes to speculating about the author, and since I have not seen this particular angle covered as of yet, let me offer the following possibility:

The op ed is a joint effort by mainstream Republican insiders now serving in the White House. It was released with at least the tacit knowledge of the Republican congressional leaders, Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, and it has been done as a way of terminally undermining Trump in the run up to the November 2018 mid term elections. The reason is that the authors and GOP leadership may well believe that they are headed to a landslide loss in November if they continue to ride Trump’s coattails. For them, it is not so much the possibility of Trump being impeached that is a primary concern (if the Democrats regain a majority in the House he certainly will be impeached), but of the disruption to their legislative agenda if they lose control of Congress. Should they lose the House and even more so if they lose the Senate as well, the GOP will be dead in the water when it comes to advancing its policy agenda. And although the economy is strong, they know that Trump’s disapproval ratings are at record levels and his divisiveness is corrosive to the national well-being, something that has prompted a rise in youth and ethnic minority political involvement and a shift to the Left in Democratic congressional primaries at the same time that cleavages between mainstream and populist Republicans in their primaries grow larger. None of this augers well for Republican electoral chances on November 6.

By the tone and language of the op ed, the authors are mainstream “traditional” Republicans, not Tea Party adherents, economic nationalists like Steve Bannon or alt-Right freaks like Stephen Miller. They clearly exhibit insider knowledge of beltway politics and congressional dynamics.  The language used in the essay suggests that the two retired generals that are senior administration officials–Chief of Staff John Kelly and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis–are not centrally involved even if phrases attributed to them appeared in the text (although they may have been aware of the drafting process).

Pence could be  involved as an author. As Vice President he stands to gain much if Trump resigns, and as a former congressman before becoming Indiana Governor, he has close ties to the GOP Congressional caucuses. But Jeff Sessions could also be involved in the drafting of the op ed. A former Senator and current Attorney General who has been the subject of relentless attacks by Trump for recusing himself from the Mueller investigation into Russian involvement with the Trump presidential campaign, Sessions shares the views outlined in the Times piece. He  has ties to Congress that go back decades and he has a motive for revenge. Kelly Ann Conway is another likely conspirator. Married to a long-standing GOP operative who despises Trump and herself a long-time Republican strategist, she has the worldview presented in the op ed and the connections to the “steady state” that is said to be running things in the pursuit of stability and consistency under the nose of the irrational fool in charge.

So my take is this. Regardless of who exactly are involved, no one individual in the White House would have the courage to write the Resistance essay alone. But a group of mainstream Republican senior officials stuck with an incompetent, ignorant, narcissistic sociopath as leader of their own party as well as president, one who could well be leading them to a historic defeat that could in turn irretrievably fracture the Party, might well have decided to put their heads together and come up with a plan to undermine Trump in order to force his ouster via resignation. They will not come forth and give their names because to do so would allow Trump to regain some initiative by firing them.  Remaining anonymous and in the shadows so close to the Oval Office has and will send Trump into a witch hunting frenzy that, given his obsessive personality, will dominate every aspect of his routine. And in the measure that he obsesses about leakers and scurries to rallies in order to seek comfort and solace far from the isolation he feels in Washington, the more nothing else will get done when it comes to Executive policy-making. Along with the ongoing vendettas, feuds, insults and scandals that are the daily circus that is Trump’s “crazyland” (as General Kelly purportedly referred to it), that makes it easier for Republican candidates to abandon him in all but the most die hard pro-Trump districts. Since those districts alone cannot keep a GOP House majority, it is in contestable districts where the GOP choice to ride his coattails or jump ship is starkest. The Resistance op ed is a signal to them as to which way to go.

So, as others have already pointed out, there is a slow moving coup at play here. It is not coming from the armed forces and/or Democratic Party. It is coming from within the Republican Party in an effort to save itself from the cancer that is Trump. The questions are whether the Resistance coup will succeed and whether it will be enough to save the Republicans from what they have become.

Bonus media link: Mitch Harris and I talk about the Resistance essay and more during our latest radio conversation.

Rest thee well, Greg.

TVNZ journalist and news reader Greg Boyed died this week while on holiday in his wife’s home country, Switzerland. Unknown to me and many others, he was fighting depression and it appears that it got the best of him.

I knew Greg professionally because he interviewed me a few times. But I knew him personally as well because his wife and son attended the same playschool that I did with my son for a couple of years. Greg would come by regularly to share parental duties and he and I would reflect on the world of children and the larger world around us. From those conversations and my professional interactions with him, I can say that Greg was a good man with a keen mind and a fair heart, an honest journalist and a loving father. I am deeply saddened to see him go and I grieve for his widow and son.

In a business full of poseurs and shills, Greg was the real deal. He will be missed not just by his colleagues but by his audiences as well.  He is the second journalist friend of mine who has departed this realm in recent months, in similar circumstances. I can only despise the darkness that comes upon such talented and decent people and can only hope that others going through what they did can find the help that they need in order to carry on well before the darkness finally envelopes them.

May his whanau find comfort in the legacy he has left behind and in the affection and respect he received from a broad swathe of people.

Rest easy my friend.

Peddling drivel.

As an admirer of the eloquent written word and nuanced argument, occasional op-ed writer and someone who grew up reading the editorial pages of major newspapers in several countries, I have long seen the editorial pages of newspapers as places where public intellectuals debated in some depth the major issues of the day. Those who appeared on them came from many walks of life and fields of endeavour, with the common denominator being that they were thoughtful exponents of their point of view and grounded in the analytic, philosophical and theoretical underpinnings of the subjects that they discussed. Unfortunately, at least in NZ, that is no longer the case (if it ever was).

Over the last decade or so there has been a pernicious two-track trend in NZ media that has not only resulted in the dumbing down of the “news” and public discourse in general, but the substitution of informed and considered debate by shallow opinionating by celebrities and charlatans.

The first trend is the move toward consolidation of media “empires” (in NZ, mostly Australian owned), in which previously autonomous entities in television, radio and print are amalgamated into one parent entity with several platforms. As with all media enterprises, the parent entity seeks profit mainly through advertising (as opposed to subscriptions), including digital advertising promoted by so-called “click bait” and sponsored “news ” (i.e. stories paid by entities seeking brand publicity). In NZ the two big players are Mediaworks and NZME. The former controls TV3, Radiolive and various pop culture radio stations. NZME controls Newstalk ZB, the NZ Herald and various pop culture outlets. It has connections to TV One (at least when it comes to newsreaders), while the Mediaworks TV News platforms appears to episodically share personnel with Prime News. Fairfax Media is also in the mix, holding a portfolio of print and digital vehicles.

Because the NZ media market is small and saturated, the “race to the bottom” logic for getting readers/viewers/listeners in a shrinking print advertising market is akin to the “bums in seats” mentality that pushes academic administrators to demand easing up of marking standards in university courses. Although in the latter instance this creates a syndrome where unqualified people are admitted, passed and receive underserved (and hence meaningless) degrees, in the media realm this means that scandal, gossip, “human interest” and other types of salacious, morbid, tragic and otherwise crude and vulgar material (think of terrorism porn and other prurient non-news) have come to dominate the so-called news cycle. This is accelerated by the presence elf social media and 24 hours global news networks, which makes the push for original content that attracts audiences and therefore advertising revenues increasingly focused on sensational headline grabbing rather than in-depth consideration of complex themes. Among other things, this has led to headlines that trivialise serious matters in favour of witty one-liners, e.g., “kiddie fiddler put in time out.”

In the editorial opinion field what we are increasingly subject to is the often inane and mendacious ruminations of celebrities, “lifestyle’ gurus  or media conglomerate “properties” who are used to cross-pollinate across platforms using their status on one to heighten interest in another. That squeezes out op-ed room for serious people discussing subjects within their fields of expertise. What results is that what should be the most august pages in a newspaper are given over to gossipy nonsense and superficial “analyses” of current events.

Consider what we get these days: two NZME “properties,” a married couple who do back-to-back morning shows on NewstalkZB (and previously worked at TV One), are now filling daily column inches (at least in the digital version) at the Herald with their thoughts on things such as high housing prices  and deporting families (he thinks the former is good because it means that everyone is doing well and the latter is good because to do otherwise is to “send the wrong message”) or relations between school students and displaying breasts in public (she thinks the former are good but the latter bring consequences). Given their ubiquity this “power” couple apparently are renaissance-like in their command of subjects and thus worth the daily attention of the masses, although it is also clear that their views only cover already established news stories and are presented along strictly gender lines–he addresses “serious” issues while she covers topics usually found in women’s rags. The Herald also offers us the received (and sponsored) wisdom of lifestyle bloggers  (“how to have the best sex at 60!”) and buffoons such as the U Auckland business lecturer who poses as a counter-terrorism expert (she of the advice that we search every one’s bags as the enter NZ shopping malls and put concrete bollards in front of mall entrances), gives cutesy pie names to the (often sponsored) by-lines of real scientists (the so-called “Nanogirl,” who now comments on subjects unrelated to her fields of expertise) or allows people with zero practical experience in any given field to pontificate on them as if they did (like the law professor who has transformed himself into a media counter-terrorism and foreign policy “expert”).

Fairfax is less prolific in its use of “properties” to sell product, but instead have opted to fill newspaper space with lifestyle and other “fluff” content at the expense of hard news coverage and informed editorial opinion.

The pattern of giving TV newsreaders, radio talking heads and assorted media “personalities”  column inches on the newspaper op ed pages has been around for a while but now appears to be the dominant form of commentary. Let us be clear: the media conglomerates want us to believe that the likes of Hoskings and Hawkesby are public intellectuals rather than opinionated mynahs–or does anyone still believe that there is an original thought between them? The only other plausible explanation is that the daily belching of these two and other similar personages across media platforms is an elaborate piss-take on the part of media overlords that have utter contempt for the public’s intelligence.

The trend of consolidating and regurgitating extends to the news. Most of the international news stories on NZ newspapers, TV and radio are obtained from overseas sources, particularly media outlets owned by the Australian based investment funds that control Fairfax, NZME and Mediaworks. There are few international correspondents left in the NZ media scene other than “properties” who share views on multimedia platforms such as the single “news” correspondents assigned by NZME to the US, UK and Australia. Some independent NZ-based foreign news correspondents still appear in print, but there too they are the exception to the rule.

The evening TV news and weekend public affairs shows are still run as journalistic enterprises, but the morning and evening public affairs programs are no longer close to being so. “Human interest” (read: tabloid trash) stories predominate over serious subjects. The Mediaworks platforms are particularly egregious, with the morning program looking like it was pulled out of a Miami Vice discard yard and staffed by two long-time newsreaders joined by a misogynistic barking fool, all wearing pancake makeup that borders on clownish in effect. Its rival on state television has grown softer over the years, to the point that in its latest incarnation it has given up on having its female lead come from a journalistic background and has her male counterparts engaging as much in banter as they are discussing the news of the day. The TV3 evening show features a pretty weathergirl and a slow-witted, unfunny comedian as part of their front-line ensemble, with a rotating cast of B-list celebrities, politicians and attention-seekers engaging in yuk yuk fests interspersed with episodic discussion of real news. Its competitor on TV One has been re-jigged but in recent years has been the domain of–you guessed it–that NZME male radio personality and an amicable NZME female counterpart, something that continues with its new lineup where a male rock radio jock/media prankster has joined a well-known TV mother figure to discuss whatever was in the headlines the previous morning. What is noteworthy is that these shows showcase the editorial opinions of the “properties” on display, leaving little room for and no right of rebuttal to those who have actual knowledge of the subjects in question.

These media “properties” are paid by the parent companies no matter what they do. Non-affiliated people who submit op ed pieces to newspapers are regularly told that there is no pay for their publication (or are made to jump through hoops to secure payment).  That means that the opinion pages  are dominated by salaried media personalities or people who will share their opinions for free. This was not always the case, with payments for opinion pieces being a global industry norm. But in the current media environment “brand” exposure is said to suffice as reward for getting published, something that pushes attention-seekers to the fore while sidelining thoughtful minds interested in contributing to public debate but uninterested in doing so for nothing. The same applies to television and radio–if one is not a “property,” it is virtually impossible to convince stations to pay for informed commentary.

To be sure, the occasional “deep thinker” comes along to share their ideas and opinions in print or audio-visually. Some, like good ole Chris Trotter, still pound their keyboards and pontificate on radio and television for a handful of coin. There is even some young talent coming through. Blogs have begun to substitute the corporate media as sources of intelligent conversation. But people of erudition and depth are increasingly the exception to the rule in the mass media, with the  editorial landscape now populated in its majority by “properties” and other (often self-promoting) personality “opinionators” rather than people who truly know what they are talking about. Rather than a sounding board for an eclectic lineup of informed opinion, editorial pages are now increasingly used as megaphones to broadcast predictably well-known ideological positions with little intellectual grounding in the subjects being discussed.

With over-enrolled journalism schools churning out dozens of graduates yearly, that leaves little entry room and few career options for serious reporters. The rush is on to be telegenic and glib, so the trend looks set to continue.

This is not just an indictment of the mass media and those who run and profit from it. It undermines the ability of an educated population to make informed decisions on matters of public import, or at least have informed input into the critical issues of the day.

Perhaps that is exactly what the media and political elites intend.

Goodbye to a good soul.

Yasmine Ryan died this past week in Istanbul. She was only 34. She was an intrepid, dedicated, courageous and honest journalist, someone who unlike so many others vying for attention in the New Zealand media landscape, went out and did the type of serious investigative reporting that is now all but absent in her country of birth. Her death is not only a loss to her family and friends. It is a loss to the journalistic profession as well as New Zealand’s reputation for providing impartial perspectives on matters of political and social import world-wide.

Yasmine was a student of mine when we were at the University of Auckland. She went on to work at Scoop here in NZ, then Al-Jazeera and other outlets in the Middle East. Before her death she was working for TRT World, the Turkish international television news service. Her articles appeared in many important publications, including the Guardian, Independent, Sunday Star Times, Washington Post, LA Times, New York Times, Middle East Eye and Foreign Policy, and she was a contributor to outlets such as CNN, CBC, NZ National Radio and NZ TV One News. She co-authored a book about the Ahmed Zaoui case in New Zealand, helped produce three documentaries on contemporary Arabic politics and society and was a 2016 World Press Institute Fellow in the US who most recently had been elected to the board of the International Association of Women in Television and Radio. Fluent in French and English and well versed in Arabic and Spanish, she lived in France, Qatar, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia before her move to Turkey a little over a year ago.  She traveled exhaustively and had a global network of friends and professional contacts who are now left to mourn her loss and the void that she left behind.

Yasmine was and is a special inspiration to women entering the journalistic profession. Her desire was not to work her way up to talking head status on the local news by reporting on cats in trees and celebrity sightings. She was not interested in cozying up to politicians, yukking it up on breakfast shows and posing on red carpets at awards shows.  Instead, her focus was on providing an outlet for forgotten voices and views seldom aired in mainstream Western outlets, and to offer in-depth analysis of events and trends that often received no more than cursory coverage outside of the places in which they occurred. Endowed with great personal courage, she left the comfort of her homeland to become an freelancer in a region not known for its encouragement of independent women in that profession. Her writing about what became known as the “Arab Spring” and its aftermath cemented her reputation as a first-rate reporter in North Africa and the Middle East, and her subsequent work confirmed that she was an extraordinary talent even at such a young age. That makes her departure all the more difficult to understand.

A GiveaLittle page has been set up in her memory in order to help her family cover the expenses of returning her home. It can be found here. Please consider donating.

May your eternal rest be a peaceful one my friend. You made a difference.

Media Irritants.

Terrorism Porn.

Coverage of the Manchester bombing has turned into an exercise in morbid titillation. The media voyeuristically interviews hysterical parents about whether they or their children saw carnage and how do they feel about that. They blather on about the identity of the perpetrator and his ties to Daesh.  In doing so they explain nothing more than what is already obvious and feed into the extremist narrative. It is all about shock! horror! the humanity! OMG, what depravity does this?!  Meanwhile kids are wiped out on industrial scale in non Anglo Saxon places and the Western media barely murmurs. Perhaps the people at the BBC, CNN, Fox News, Newshub  or TVNZ  believe that white children matter more than brown or black ones, but I for one do not. Unless coverage is given equally to Palestinian, Syrian or Yemeni children buried under the debris of their houses bombed from above, or to those destroyed in sectarian violence in the Sudan, Somalia, India and Pakistan, then the Western media needs to spare us their crocodile tears about “innocence lost.”

Let me put it this way: Last night on a 7PM show a NZ television outlet offered a panel with a comedian, a politician and some gender balanced eye candy ready to discuss the issues of the day. After a somber cross over to the UK to discuss the bombing with a follow up by a local academic, the hosts turned and said something to the effect of “now changing the subject,” whereupon they all went into yuck yuck mode over some stupid story about something inconsequential. Again, this included a politician of some apparent import in this land. That was shameful, debased and as clear a sign of the vacuousness of NZ media (and some politicians) as one can ever get.

If the media and UK government had a shred of decency and counter-terrorism sense they would have never mentioned the killer’s name, or his motivations, or streamed imagery of panicked teens running for cover and crying parents searching for their offspring. Instead, the authorities should have just reported that a mass murder occurred in which explosives were used and that the police were investigating and offering support to the victims and family. The corporate media should have follow suit and imposed restrictions on coverage even in the face (and especially because) of social media coverage of the event. That would help take the oxygen out of the extremist story, removes fuel for copycats and nut jobs, give no credence to motivation or ideology and treats the event as what it is: a violent criminal act, no more, no less.

Instead, we get discussions of the type of explosives used (and where to find the ingredients for them) and the emotional and psychological impact of the event. Sadists, jihadists and any number of terrorism “experts” are wanking themselves with delight at the way the story has been covered but the rest of us are no wiser for it.

Iran is not the greatest sponsor of terrorism.

The US government and the Western media continue to run and parrot the line that Iran is the greatest sponsor of terrorism in the world and thus the major threat to peace in the Middle East. Holding a straight face, President Drumpf recently repeated this meme at a conference of Sunni Arab oligarchies hosted by Saudi Arabia–Saudi Arabia! Those paragons of governmental virtue and human rights advocacy applauded his words and the Western press, including that of NZ, reported approvingly of the statesmanship demonstrated by his remarks.

I call bullish*t on that.

Sure, Iran suports Hezbollah, Hamas, the Alawite regime in Syria, the al-Sadr and other Shiia militias in Iraq and Houthi rebels in Yemen. It is complicit in the bombings of the Israeli embassy and Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires in the early 1990s (and I, as a US Defense Department official charged with Latin American affairs at the time have some knowledge of the financial and forensic investigations that trace back to Tehran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards). It clearly has nuclear ambitions and talks trash about Israel, but compared to North Korea with regard to the former and any Friday sermon in the Sunni world with regard to the latter, how is it appreciably worse? Seriously, does anyone with a fair and objective mind think that (Shiite) Iran is a worse sponsor of terrorism than, say, (Sunni) Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan (whose intelligence services were implicated in the Mumbai terrorist attacks and who continue to fund and arm extremists in India and Afghanistan, if not further afield), any of the other UAE countries or, putting aside sectarian weirdness for a moment, organised crime and –dare I say it–the US (which backed with money and weapons rightwing death squads responsible for the deaths of thousands in Latin America and elsewhere from the 1950s to the 1980s and with who covert connections are reported to continue to this day)?

Why does the media accept the US word about Iran and its links to terrorism? Why do they not question the criteria upon which this “assessment” is based. Because nothing I have read, heard or personally seen in three decades of working the interstices of unconventional warfare has led me to believe that Iran is the foremost sponsor/supporter of terrorism in the world yesterday or today. Instead, it is a revolutionary regime that has successfully stood up to the US and its Sunni allies using conventional and unconventional means, covert and overt, indirect and direct, diplomatic, military and economic. I am not a fan of the Iranian regime or its ideology, but what is so different about the way it operates when compared to other regional actors other than that it has an adversarial relationship with the US and others in the West? Iran may not be the best “behaved” country in the world either domestically or internationally, but again, compared to who and by what measure?

The NZDF are lying and covering up what happened during Operation Burnham.

The NZDF wants us to believe that contrary to all Western professional militaries, its special operators do not occasional make mistakes that result in the deaths of innocents and, moreover, do not carry cameras into battle zones, do not collect forensic evidence on those killed and need permission from the US to release video from the air cover provided during NZDF operations abroad (assuming of course, that the NZDF requests such video in the first place). Other than an intrepid few, the NZ media has just taken the NZDF word for it although it has now been caught out lying about photographic evidence taken by NZDF soldiers at the scene (“and oversight” it claims), and has generally stonewalled OIA requests for information about really happened.

I am not entirely convinced that the explanation of the Burnham mission offered by Jon Stephenson (whose reporting constitutes ninety percent of the book Hit and Run) and Nicky Hager (who took majority credit for it) is absolutely correct in all details, but I sure as hell know one thing: when it comes to the honesty, integrity and credibility of Mr. Stephenson versus that of the NZDF brass, I will take Mr. Stephenson every time. This is not about the soldiers on the ground that night. This is about who gave the orders to undertake the raid and who decided to hide what really happened in its aftermath. Were it that TV talking heads and comfortable columnists and opinionators be cognisant of that fact.

Such a nice crowd.

Unfortunately I know people, to include some in my own family, who are Trump supporters and who think that Fox News is “fair and balanced.” I also know some people, including one here at KP, who think that voting for Trump is all good because it will break the status quo politics represented by Hillary Clinton.

Many of the people I know that have chosen the Trump/Fox News view of the world bristle at the suggestion that they have issues with race/ethnicity/gender/Islam/sexuality/foreigners/poor people/disabled people/whatever. Some of those who think that voting for Trump is an anarchic stroke of tactical genius appear to ignore the concerns raised by these suggestions or believe them to be untrue. Allow me the right of rejoinder with one link.

It may not be a statistically significant sample of opinion among the Trump/Fox News “nation,” but I believe that this compilation is emblematic of what lies at its core. And if this is the base sentiment behind Trump that is being championed by Fox News, then the situation, if not the very character of his campaign, is indeed a giant basket of deplorable.

Say what you want about Ms. Clinton (and I shall write something about the false narrative about her at some point), she does not attract this type of folk. In fact, she repels them, which is as good enough reason to vote for her as is anything else.

Bland Eyed Soul: Analysing Brand Key

It was a toss-up between posting this or my short fiction story “John Key goes to prison”. I will post the story some other time.

While doing research for a few upcoming KP posts on Asia I was distracted on the weekend by Vernon Small’s article about John Key and the outcome of the Broadcasting Standards Authority investigation into a complaint about his prison rape/soap joke while on the Radio station the Rock last year and rapidly spiraled off into what you are reading now.

But it was Small’s specific comment about Key “trading prime ministerial dignity for a populist hit” that really started me thinking about what exactly is going on with our Dear Leader and his carefully crafted media image.

Because while there have been recent articles claiming that Key is “plummeting” in the polls as preferred PM the reality is that he remains well head of the rest by a significant factor and while not at the Trump level of being able to kill someone in the street it’s clear that John Key can say and do things other could not get away with, PM or not.

So yes Keys popularity is the lowest it’s ever been and there is definite wisdom in what Small was saying but that level of analysis is not enough, right now we have only four of the journalistic five W’s (who, what, where and when) while what we really need is the why.

And it’s an area which has been examined before, the why of “why is John Key so popular?” question that NZ political reporters have been asking for a long time now. And with more than a few shots at it, the best of the bunch are Bryce Edwards piece in the NBR from 2011 and Tracy Watkin’s recent look at having Key around for a fourth term but neither really dig into Brand Key.

Watkins focuses on the Key playbook while Edwards notes the apolitical nature of Key and these are both valid approaches but Brand Key needs an actual breakdown of the brand and both pieces remain rooted in pure politics rather than from John Key being commodified in exactly the same way a bar of soap is or how a pop star marketed to their fans.

So with this in mind I aim to have a deeper look into John “you have a pretty mouth” Key through the lens of advertising rather than politics.

Now full disclosure, while not an expert on advertising, I worked in the industry for a short period (creative, copywriter and catalog model*) and I have always had an interest in advertising itself as in many ways it is the lingua franca of capitalism and the true art of our age. So while I may scramble the terminology at times I am looking at Key in the same way as I looked at creating an ad when I was employed to do such.

To begin with we need to look at the key principles behind Brand Key which are: brand awareness; brand loyalty; brand strategy; brand definition; brand equity; synergy and brand momentum. These are the key (no pun intended) principles behind Brand Key. Of course these terms are the language of marketing but, in this case, underneath there is a creepy layer of politics that we will get to that a bit later.

First up is brand awareness or how aware are they of Brand Key. For Key its pretty good, he is the PM after all and he regularly appears in the media both politically and at times non-politically in tabloid/gossip publications like those found at supermarket checkouts. He also gets named on blogs like this (oh the irony) and his face is recognizable as the PM of NZ. Most of us know who he is and would recognize him if he stepped out onto the street (as he did one time in Wellington as I was walking to work). So say his name (try it five times while facing a mirror) and people will know who you are talking about. That’s a high level of awareness.

Next is brand loyalty or how loyal are people to his lizardness. This can be measured by the fact that Key has remained popular in the polls as preferred PM for almost a decade now, that not a  bad achievement despite him making rape jokes, pulling pigtails, sending in his lawyer to lobby for tax havens and all the rest of grubby little things he has been linked to. It is worth pointing out though that loyalty in public and loyalty in the party may not be the same thing as Judith Collins previous coup attempt shows that the art of backstabbing leaders remains alive and well in the National party (but they don’t call John Key the “smiling assassin” for nothing so he lived though that one).

Another point to note is that loyalty for Brand Key may not translate into loyalty to the National Party as its current position in the polls exists by virtue of Key capturing the all-important (at least for the time being) middle voter demographic on their behalf. Few if any would vote for National if it was not for Brand Key (something I noted in my previous post on the party).

From brand loyalty to brand strategy (what strategy is being used to manipulate the image of Key in such a way as to appeal to voters), we now start to get into the subtle and often unspoken nuances of Brand Key which is a combination of being apolitical (as Bryce Edwards noted in his 2011 article) and that blokey, matey, kiwi every-man quality that all male politicians in NZ, and a few female ones as well, desperately want to tap into.

Well in Key’s case he has nailed it and this is reflected in loyalty to Brand Key, he is perceived as being an authentic kiwi male (likes rugby, drinks beer etc) which resonates with kiwi voters in that he is a male figure that they can identify with and which also appeals to female voters in the same mold as the fresh faced, suit wearing, middle aged white men first made popular by Tony “poodle” Blair but later co-opted by conservatives everywhere has appeal.

Brand Key as an image is incredibly strong and resonates in much the same way any popular brand does and through a variety of media formats (image, sound, word etc) which makes the strategy of billing him as an apolitical middle man perfect for appealing to middle ground voters unhappy with the perceived failures of partisan politics and wishing only for a simple message and action orientated leader (if only in image rather than actual action) an easy task.

The fact that Key has kept hidden his deep ideological background to the vampire squid and all that it entails from Godzone voters is proof that this strategy has worked wonders and remains viable today.

Following on is brand equity (or capital) which is the measure of how much good will a brand has banked away for a rainy day. Again in this area Brand Key has been very successful and while things have had a bit of a downturn of late (as with the rape joke not going quite as well as planned) it remains in credit with the mainstream voting public.

Brand equity is built primarily through a successful brand strategy and as we have seen the strategy has been so successful that it has led to a windfall of equity to which Brand key has used to offset moments like a backfiring rape skit on a brain dead radio show.

Then there is brand definition (the positive, open articulation of the brand though positioning it within a particular idea or framework) which is the opposite of brand strategy (which is primarily subliminal in its articulation to people). Brand Key has been defined by words like “pragmatic” or “human” or photos of him doing human things (like having a pizza delivered to his house) which all lead to John Key often being set apart from other politicians.

Brand Key is defined as a kiwi guy, popular and the kind of person you could run up and take a selfie with, the kind you would want to take a selfie with and to which we would like to know more of his life, just like we do when we hanker for more info about our favorite celebrity, a Kardashian like politician if you will (the spawn family from Hollywood not the aggressive alien spawn from Star Trek) for the political public to consume through vicarious means.

If Brand Key could be defined in the language of soft drinks then John Key is the politician that refreshes, with no added political baggage (like ideology and such) that Labour and the Greens have (well maybe the Greens) and focused on the things that matter, like having an economic surplus and lower taxes (i.e. getting wealthy). He is the politician you vote for when you want the classic taste of economic conservatism but none of the ideological aftertaste you get with ACT.

After brand definition is synergy, a king among buzzwords, even in marketing and now in government. Synergy in this sense means the magic of bringing it all together with that extra something special that gives things mojo where they themselves had none. Its the X Factor for politicians and Key is racking up the votes while the accordion player and albino dancers languish off stage. There is no denying Key has the X factor when it comes to politics.

And finally there is brand momentum, the movement or energy of a brand. The easiest way to picture brand momentum is to imagine a brand as a shark swimming, if its stops it sinks and it dies therefore it’s imperative for there to be continual movement and in marketing “movement” means exposure, new advertising campaigns (not necessarily any new products) to keep the brand in the mind of the public and keep it oxygenated and alive because there are always other predators/brands out there which will pounce on a weak brand and usurp its position as apex predator.

In the case of Brand Key there is no possible momentum outside politics. One could not imagine John Key helming the NZ version of Celebrity Political Apprentice (although I do like the idea of such a show) uttering some immortal line (“you’re a tree hugging liberal!” for example) at the end of each episode as another unfortunate contestant is hauled off to some distressing little room in the Beehive basement for another session on the rack before being returned to the backbenches to mutter “I love John Key” slowly and repeatedly during sitting days in parliament.

No, with no politics there is no Brand Key, it is only within those waters does such a creature swim and out of all the principles discussed this is the one area where Brand Key has a real problem because it is here that the limitations of Brand Key become evidently clear and where the veil on Brand Key is pulled away to reveal another layer; a dirty grimy layer, coating the surface like some sticky, amorphous and unidentifiable substance stuck to one’s finger that is difficult to remove and smells funny as it comes off.

And it is not the fault of any of the principles of advertising which fail when applied to Brand Key but the concept itself of applying marketing techniques and ideologies to something such as politics. Sure it shows the pervasiveness of late stage capitalism in penetrating all aspects of society but that does not mean that they will work as intended to even work well. The commonality of the public and community that politics is supposed to represent does not fit well with the highly individualized act of consumerism in the 21st century.

Branding in politics, as in any form of branding, is style over substance, it is artificially building up something which does not exists or has not yet had the time to reach such a state naturally before delivering it to an eager consumer to be consumed and in the case of John Key few if any would consider him a genuine statesman when compared to his ongoing image as Prime Minister. Key at best is a manager, a middle manager, following the orders from higher up and implementing their agenda rather than formulating any real policy or ideas of his own.

In his past career as a market speculator he may have shown some brilliance in manipulating the small variances of the market to make his vampire squid bosses rich but that was the extent of it (although there is no doubting that Key, unlike many in Nationals cabinet, is a genuinely intelligent person). His miracle advance through the ranks of National in the early 2000s has all the hallmarks of a heavily stage managed career path, not one of his own making or design (he had the talent but a bit of promotion never hurt). John Key is a cypher, of no importance himself but useful in the grand scheme which is why he is so apolitical because making money needs no real political allegiance and as PM he himself is just an actor playing a role.

Therefore the building and maintaining of Brand Key has been essential to hide this simple fact. Brands tap into the subconscious, bypass the rational and distract the mind (like a meme or a virus) with easily repeatable images and words’ all of which are to hide from view the true fact that product A is exactly the same as product B.

The shaping and molding of John Key into Brand Key has been an unqualified success in the last decade but this has not been at the behest of John Key. He may have allowed himself to go under the spin doctor’s knife in order to enhance his image (much like Helen Clark did with her makeover while PM, to appear more human and less like a Quentin Blake drawing) but this was in the service of his “role” as PM and not a conscious or natural evolution.

And its those spin doctors sitting in such close proximity to the PMs office that are likely the same individuals who brought about the Dirty Politics scandal which exposed the National party agenda for winning the 2014 election as one less focused on winning the vote or enacting any actual policy changes and more about smearing the opposition; using attack blogs, rumors and manipulation of the political discourse to such an extent that all other voices are drowned out and the only thing one can hear is the mind numbing buzz of the Brand Key jingle burrowing its way into your head like some brain controlling worm.

So what happens to Brand Key when John Key loses an election or decides to retire from politics, what happens to old brands when they go off to die?

Most brands don’t age well, think of all those pro-smoking adds from the 1940’s or other lame and nauseous adverts from the 1950’s onward (like coke or Macdonald’s) with their artificial realities, happy families and smiling faces hiding the grim realities (such as lung cancer or type two diabetes) which come after the product has been bought and consumed.

The chances of John Key turning out to be a classic or iconic brand are low. Brand Key has been more a series of flash in the pan media moments with its strobe light effect smashing again and again in the victims eyes, blinding them to the generic product wrapped up in marketing hype; rather than a NZ trusted brand which radiates appeal to kiwis.

The likely legacy that Brand Key will leave behind is as the Fred Dagg of his generation, a caricature of a politician with his endless media moments rather than genuine Kiwi political figures who left behind real legacies (such as Norm Kirk, Keith Holyoake, Robert Muldoon or David Lange); a smooth talking city boy with a bland soul rather than an authentic political individual that enacted real positive political change**.

I end here with a quote from a hero of mine which fits this post rather well; it came to me by chance as so many things in my life do. Take it away Bruce!

“Those who distrust the life-giving force within them, or who have none, are driven to compensate through such substitutes as money. When a man has confidence in himself, when all he wants in the world is to live out his destiny in freedom and purity, he comes to regard all those vastly overestimated and far too costly possessions as mere accessories, pleasant perhaps to have and make use of, but never essential.” Bruce Lee.

*-because when you are a short, skinny dark hair guy in Asia you can work as a photo model. And yes I have a schizophrenic CV, that’s my life.

**-That does not mean the john Key as the actual human being may not turn out to be a genuinely interesting person but this post is looking at the political context only.

Praise where it’s due…

I did little this weekend except walk on the beach, watch the roller derby and surf the interwebs, where I found…

After bagging New Zealand’s political media last week about low budget reporting (specifically Stacey Kirk’s article about Labour/Greens being “neck and neck” with National in the latest polls) and previously for similar bland and mediocre work (in that case Tracy Watkins for reporting on Winston Peters) I was pleasantly surprised to see that both reporters had filed rather good pieces over the weekend (here and here).

Now my inflated ego would love to think that this was due to the persuasive words in my posts about their work stinging them to produce better but the reality is that they simply turned in good work, because they are professional journalists after all, and would not know me (or my rants online) from Adam.

So in that case praise where praise is due for both of them turning in sharp and interesting articles on the current situation in Labour (you would think Labour would try to build off their recent jump in poll results but noooooo).

And for those who might wonder if I am simply trolling Stuff for all my political reportage I link this piece from Gordon Campbell (previously from the most excellent Scoop but now on his own site, Werewolf) who I consider the gold standard to which I strive in my blogging but rarely achieve.

Campbell is always incisive and on point and his recent post on the China situation where he describes Todd McClay as “the sock puppet otherwise known as the New Zealand Minister of Trade” is a fabulous combination of scathing political commentary and actual grim truth (given how McClay took the bullet meant for Key on China’s dodgy behavior) as he relates the latest on and then compares the National Governments response to that of a PR firm fronting for China.

Finally I watched this rather excellent video of Jon Stewart talking with David Axelrod (yes that David Axelrod!) about the US elections and wondered, like many others, what great work he would have made from things this time given how he covered the last round of clown politics in 2012 (my all-time favorite being the Dope Diamond).

Have a good week.

It’s not a Housing Crisis it’s a Housing Hernia: And both John Key and Andrew Little have one!

Yes I am flogging this dead horse again except that its an all new flog, we are flogging a different part of the horse and the horse might just not be dead yet!

Well it had to happen and last week it did, the first difference of opinion between Labour and the Greens happened since their cosy little MOU in May. And what was the disagreement over? Not surprisingly it was housing!

But we are not calling it a housing crisis anymore, that term is too controversial, too running down the road with your head on fire, so instead we are now calling it the Housing Hernia.

I had a hernia once. I got it after five hours shaking my behind on a sweaty dance floor and then walking, dripping in sweat, out into the chill of a Singaporean pre-dawn. It was not a smart move. First I got a hacking cough, then it got worse, finally it got nasty. The cough became painful, very painful every time I sneezed, which was a lot. I had contracted tropical pneumonia.

Overnight I was transformed into a low budget Michael Jackson impersonator by the fact that every time I sneezed I grabbed my crotch and screamed. This entertained my friends and co-workers no end at first but since I couldn’t do the dance moves or sing Billie Jean it soon became tiresome.

Sensing a serious problem I made haste to my local Singaporean doctor, a hardworking gentleman who served the massive HDB (Housing Development Board) block next to where I lived. He was quick, he was efficient and after hearing my plight and testing for himself by pressing the affected area (eliciting a strangled scream from me) he pronounced me the proud father of a hernia.

“A hernia, you mean like what rugby players get?” I asked (forgetting that Singaporeans don’t play rugby and my own experiences of who might get a hernia was severely limited). “Yes” he said in that voice doctors have for patients who ask stupid questions. “So what do I do?” I asked. The doctor looked at me and said “you can have surgery to treat it or leave it as it is and risk a rupture” in the same way a waiter might give the options for desert (lemon tart or chocolate cake? The correct answer is cake!). Needless to say I chose surgery!

So off I went to see the specialist, who has two plastic gold lions outside his office (a common sight outside offices in Singapore) which denoted the wealth and taste of the occupant inside. Thankfully he was a skilled doctor and thanks to the magic of health insurance (the only expats in Singapore without it are the stupid ones) I was booked in and ready to have the little bugger removed.

I won’t bore you with the gory details but suffice it to say the operating room looked like an extremely clean, white tiled, mechanics bay (complete with a rack of shiny, stainless steel tools which looked like they could pull the wheel nuts off a F1 racer in 2.6 seconds) AND that the anesthetist was late because, and I swear I am not making this up, he was playing golf!

So I lay on the wheeled stretcher, listening to the heart monitor, attached to my thumb, beeping and made a game of trying to slow my heart rate down, which correspondingly made the beeping decrease but every time I looked at the “tool rack” on the wall the beeping suddenly shot back up.

Finally all and sundry were present, I was given a shot in the arm, and asked to count to 10. I made it to five.

When I woke up I was on a stretcher in the hall and there was a pain where the hernia had been residing along with a big bandage. I hobbled out of the hospital, helped by my wife, into a taxi and home to recover.

It took a week of walking round painfully but after that the pain was gone, I had a scar to show where the doctor had cut me open and put in a plastic mesh over the hernia (which prevented it from popping out/rupturing) and its never bothered me since despite continuing to do martial arts and all manner of things which might have “ruptured” me, had I not done something about it.

Now the point of this story is to illustrate that “hernia” is a much better term to describe the housing situation in New Zealand (with its slow building (pun intended) series of issues which lead to said hernia); that the process of dealing with the wee beastie at no point required me to behave as if my head was on fire and that if left unchecked will most likely lead to a “rupture”.

In New Zealand the housing hernia is at what we might call the “Michael Jackson” stage of the process with sudden painful outbursts before all, temporarily, returns to “normal” and the growing realization that something is seriously wrong.

In deciding what to do with it appears that the Greens, or perhaps just Metiria Turei in an unscripted outburst, have opted for surgery in the form of cutting house prices to around $350, 000, while Labour, justifiably upset at being caught on the hoof by the statement but still in denial about the issue, have decided to continue with pretending that they might have a chance at appearing on Stars in Their Eyes (fat chance once you see this guy).

But as Jo Moir points out in the media, the split between the two parties clearly reflects each’s voter/generational differences with the Greens supported more by younger renters and Labour by older home owners. Of course such splits are not total but it does seem to reflect the basic demographics of the situation.

And she is not the only one to pick up on this, as media commentator Johnny Moore, found out recently when he wrote a piece attacking (at least partially in jest) the NZ Baby Boomers for making their own lives comfortable at the expense of future generations.

The response was predictable and somewhat correct in that he was eviscerated for creating a generational generalization which while overly broad in its sweep by blaming the Me Generation, also missed the fact that it’s not just boomers who are buying up houses in Godzone or that the problem is also due to political inaction by successive governments. None the less he got the parameters of the problem right.

But the best articulation of the hernia goes to Pencilsword with his masterful cartoon which is the most succinct articulation of the divide growing in NZ, I highly recommend his work.

And gap is what the issue is and if the numbers in Pencilsword’s cartoon are even remotely correct then we have the making of a generational split in NZ that may never be bridged unless something very drastic is done, like reducing house prices to an average of $350,000.

Because, as he so cleverly puts it, if you don’t own a home you have to rent and rents go up at the same market rates as house prices go up (so their owners can service their massive mortgages) yet wages ARE NOT going up or keeping pace with the rapid rise of house prices so if you rent your ability to pay rent is reduced until you either have to move to somewhere cheaper (say a garage, a car or Australia) or you get a nice large pay rise like MPs get (because we all get those don’t we?).

And this is why, despite the not adhering to the terms of the MOU by just letting fly to the media without warning Labour in advance, the Greens (or just Metiria Turei) have thrown the problem into sharp light by proposing a solution which while painful is probably necessary to prevent the likely rupture if NZ keeps on ignoring the problem and then shrieking and reeling in pain every time the housing market painfully shoots up another $3000.

For the homeowners in NZ (some of whom are Me Generation boomers) they just want this issue to go away, and the media for a long while has been compliant (possibly because they are also of said generation) by not bringing it up.

But for the renters (some of whom are Generation X (like myself) and Y’s) the problem is not going to go away, it’s getting more and more painful as rent gobbles more and more of ones pay packet at the expense of everything else and nary without a decent pay rise on the horizon (unless you move to Australia).

I note that in Christchurch where I live, rents have recently stabilized by new housing coming on stream but rents are still high and those that I know who own more than one home have reported grumbling by tenants at the high rents to the point of even asking for a reduction.

So the schizophrenic standoff continues with John Key and National, and now Andrew Little and Labour, in denial while bedazzling their white socks and glove while the upsetting, and painful solution is being discussed by the Greens (who knows what Winston thinks of this matter?).

And again the hernia analogy works here, yes getting the problem fixed before the rupture occurs, by correcting market prices, is going to hurt for some people, but there are ways to bring things down without setting ones hair on fire and the result if left is very very obvious because ALL bubbles burst/overheated markets correct in time and when house prices are jumping at $3000 a week I think we can all agree that the market is booming but it’s not going to last.

The beggar at this banquet of home ownership is anyone who can’t afford the massive sums, let alone the deposit, for a house in one of New Zealand’s major cities or towns and who is going to get continually squeezed by rising rents until something has to give.

And the rupture, if/when, it comes will be broadly along generational lines, as declining levels of home ownership do mostly align with the ages of people, resulting in a generational explosion of non-home ownership, frustration and rage at being denied a shot at the Kiwi Dream (the Quarter Acre Pavalova Paradise) and political behaviors which while not Trumpian in their levels could lead to something/someone in office for which they will be later blamed for (ironically) while the true guilty parties will have either passed on or be living comfortably retired in their mortgage free homes.

Of course the simple argument is that Labour (and the Greens) are just representing their respective electorates and that Andrew Little can’t afford to take any action which might leave the Labour faithful with a house worth less than their mortgage but if that’s the case then Andrew Little better get used to Labours current polling because they will have to squabble with the ever popular John Key and National for the declining share of voters who have their own home while the Greens and NZ First continue to gain as they speak for the increasing numbers of those who can’t make the mortgage nut.

So if this little split between Labour and the Greens is real then its more than just the Honeymoon being over, kiss goodbye the champagne and lingerie for good as this difference is unlikely to go away with just some whispered sweet nothings and a box of chocolates. To heal this divide is going to require one party or the other to give some serious ground and there is no indication that either side will be doing that. So as Moir notes someone will be “sleeping on the couch for the foreseeable future”.

But if this is politics, policy or pragmatism it’s rapidly becoming irrelevant and the housing hernia will continue to cause pain in New Zealand until the market “ruptures” or pigs need clearance to land at airports.

Finally I add this little bit of piece of gossip as it came to me from two unrelated sources and while probably in the realm of speculative fiction is not beyond the pale of possibility.

Said rumor being that the reason why National is thinking about an early election next year (July 2017 instead of November 2017) is because they know the market is going to crash soon and want to be out of power so that Labour gets the blame much like Obama got blamed for GFC which was happily brewed up while GW was on watch (but who is going to let facts get in the way of a good ol session of political point scoring).

I am not quite sold on this, yet, as it requires National to have foreknowledge of the coming crash and be willing to give up all the perks of being in government for the minor political points accrued from Nyah Nyahing Labor while it struggles with the housing hernia blowing an O-ring and writhing around in pain like its head is on fire.

But what could change my mind about this is if our ever smiling PM was to be considering dropping out of politics for whatever reason as then Nationals chances of making a fourth term are slim to zero as none of the haggard, bloated visages in cabinet  is going to have the same mojo as Key when it comes to leading the party, winning over the populace or avoiding the deluge of knives aimed at their back.

In such a situation then I would fully expect National to cut their losses by running through as much of their political program as possible between now and polling day before taking the hit and leaving Labour with the inevitable mess and them free to play the blame game.

John Key made his money as a market speculator and the housing market has all the hallmarks of a speculators market (rising bubble prices, external third parties, owning more than one house etc) so if anyone in cabinet has an inkling of what’s coming it will be him and its clear he wants to leave a legacy (see the flag debacle) so all the more better to get out before the proverbial explodes all over the fan and leaves whoever is in government with a mess than won’t wash out. He can then at least claim it was Andrew Little’s fault and criticize government inaction from the opposition benches.

There is a reason why NZ got state housing in the 30s and it was due to similar circumstances like we are getting today (low home ownership and predatory landlords) so there is a historical precedent for dealing with this. If not State Houses then something for modern times which has the same effect of getting people into homes (I wont even get into why home ownership is important for a modern state/democracy today but there is a wealth of work on the death of the middle class and the goal of neo-liberal markets to sweep away any obstacles to all wealth being consolidated in the hands of a greedy few for anyone with time to read up on it).

So to end, back to my hernia story. It was clear that at some point I would have to make a decision and take action, leaving it off in the hope of it going away would only prolong the agony and the odds of it magically remaining in equilibrium and not rupturing were very low.

So the choice is really between action now under painful but controlled circumstances or emergency surgery later BUT with much more pain and a nasty generational scar that won’t heal over. The latest Labour/Greens spat may heal over until the election but the Michael Jackson impersonations won’t soon go away and Generation Rent might sound like a good musical story but I wouldn’t want to be in it.

Watching it Bern: Why its OK to vote for Donald Trump

I’m going to get flak for this little rant but those that know me know I relish debate and will do my best to honestly defend my position.

So let’s address what I see as the 200 kilogram reptillianoid in the room; the fear driven media hyperbole around Donald Trump possibly being president.

At its simplest the argument runs something like this: better the lesser of two evils, Vote Hillary.

Your average democratic voter might make the partisan argument that Hillary Clinton is actually a good candidate while Donald Trump is a bad one. So vote Hillary.

More articulate commentators will go with the position that The Don is the death of the democratic system in the US so in order to save the system vote for Hillary!

None of these arguments (or related others), I believe, actually does the situation justice and all are essentially falling for the false front articulation that it’s better to save the system than destroy it by allowing a vote for Trump which has been articulated through a range of hysterical hyperbole about trump while simultaneously minimizing or obscuring any concerns or criticisms about Hillary.

Now I am not here to praise or bury either of these two dingbats. I find both to be representative nadirs of their respective political parties, and I am not alone in this, as record numbers of US voters on both sides of the line also have a queasy feeling in their stomach when thinking about ticking the box for either of these political bottom feeders.

But I am here to point out that the dialog being had is not always representative or balanced and in fact the current surge in popularity for anti-establishment candidates (something which I have described as “Fukyoo” politics) is in fact a good thing, an antidote to the sick and dying political systems in the US and democracies around the world.

Conversely attempts by establishments and their respective parties to hold onto their power and position by shutting out candidates like Trump and Bernie Sanders at the expense of everybody else is in fact far worse than allowing these people to genuinely poll. It is in essence highly undemocratic and represents a clear step away from democratic practice and principle and a rather elitist move towards Oligarchy or worse by demonizing potential voters through their choice of candidate.

But I can already hear the howls of outrage and the tensing of fingers on keyboards to point out that this is exactly what Donald Trump is advocating. Really? Is that what Trump represents?

US political history from Watergate on has been a slow starting then sudden plunge into the sleazy abyss in which it now finds itself. Scandals like Iran/Contra, both Gulf Wars, Bush I and II, Clinton, Wag the Dog (the practice of bombing other countries by Clinton to detract from his own scandals in the US), the pardoning of Nixon by Ford, almost everything Ronald (and Nancy) Regan (and their minions) did while in office, Dick Cheney, the Neo Cons and all the blow-back from nearly 70 years of Imperial US rule have preceded both Trump and Sanders. They are the true avatars and inheritors of the toxic spill that US politics has become.

Straddling all this is the two party system which now has a stranglehold on the political discourse, a discourse which filters a plurality of views and opinions through two very large and very coarse partisan viewpoints (if only the had considered MMP!). Third party candidates or dissenting views are not allowed and to outsiders the whole thing has the reek of the protestant vrs catholic religious wars of the 16th and 17th centuries in Europe. Heresy abounds and you’re either for or against, no dissenting opinions allowed!

“But…” I hear you cry “what about democratic manipulators like Putin in Russia, Berscolini in Italy, Mugabe in Zimbabwe and Blair in the UK, who got in under democratic means then decided to stay by gaming the system in their favour all the while perpetuating hideous crimes against their own people and sometimes other nations? That’s what Trump represents, we have to stop him!”

Easy there Tiger, hold on a second. As disgusting as these candidates appear in retrospect did they actually get power through undemocratic means? Did they seize arrive via a coup? No they did not, they made it in through free and (reasonably) fair elections.

And this is the painful and somewhat upsetting thing about democracy; anyone can run for the top job, be they ex KGB spooks, media tycoons, former freedom fighters or centrist politicians. Speculation about what they will do once in power should not preclude them from running for office. For example who has the highest body count attached to their name out of the four I have listed above? Answer Blair for his involvement in the Invasions of Iraq and the blood in the Balkans. Yet he got genuinely elected by popular mandate. Go figure!

And this is the profoundly undemocratic narrative coming forth in all the anti-trump screeching. Yes he has said some bizarre and at times disturbing things but in many ways he is the same as a candidate who makes all sorts of rash promises while on the campaign trail, only to get a reality check once in office by not being able to deliver on them. Wall on the border with Mexico; not going to happen just on costs alone, banning all Muslims; easier said than done; gold plated trump logo on the White house; … well that’s a possibility.

And in some cases, such as the WW3 worries or Madeline Albright’s comment about “giving the nuclear codes to a man who praises Vladimir Putin and Saddam Hussein” could be defused (no pun intended) by pointing out that Trump has said that US involvement in NATO will be conditional which does not sound like the ranting of a warmonger no matter who his idols are. This also leaves aside Albright’s grim record regarding civilian deaths in Iraq but that’s another story.

But the playing field is not level it seems, as recent revelations about the DNC being secretly opposed to Bernie Sanders and actively working to undermine him all the while saying they were “neutral” have shown. And its duplicity which has torn the Democratic convention in Philadelphia apart with Sanders being booed by his very own supporters when he fronted for Hillary even after the ugly truth of the DNC campaign against him was revealed.

If pressed for an honest answer the DNC might say that they were saving the party from taking the final step off the cliff by preventing  Sanders socialist rhetoric from killing the parties chances in the coming election when in reality Sanders socialist rhetoric was what was making him so popular! And in doing so Sanders was actually stepping away from the wreck of the Democratic Party, at the bottom of the cliff!

And it’s the same for Trump. His message has resonated much stronger than any other Republican contender (not surprising given the morally vacuous shells that got pushed out into the spot light) despite the often ugly tones of his individual statements and in doing so has tapped into the deep wellspring of discontent that has been bubbling away in the US long before Ross Perot ran for president as an independent in 92.

And with Sanders now falling into line behind Clinton all that frustration with the same old faces and the same old system has to go somewhere, which to some extent will go to Trump if Sanders supporters are to be taken at their word (which has been “Anyone but Hillary!”).

So back to the hyperbole, back to the desperate need to avoid Trump by voting Hillary under the assumption that such an action has merit when you don’t really want Hillary either. This is the position more than one possible Hillary voter has taken and talking to my brother and friends in the US has revealed a fear of Trump that’s been stoked by the fires of media manipulation to an extent that they would vote for one person they don’t really want to stop another person they don’t really want.

At the end of the day much of the blame lies with the monolithic two party system in the US which has mechanized politics to such a degree and entrenched various factions so deep into the system that, like the alien face huger in the movie Alien, the victim dies if it is removed. The irony being is that once the face hugger is on its too late as the egg is already implanted in the host and soon the little alien will burst forth in a shower of gore, killing the host in the process. They don’t call them chest bursters for nothing.

Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are those aliens. They have come forth in a shower of entrails but they are not the problem; they are the result of the state the system is in. And Hillary Clinton is not Sigourney Weaver running around with a flame thrower and pulse rifle saving the day in this rather tortuous analogy, she is the sinister android, secretly serving the Company by protecting the alien until it’s too late to stop it.

Clinton’s record with her emails, Benghazi and elsewhere is far more demonstrable evidence of dangerous and untrustworthy behavior than anything trump has done.

Clinton has breached national security protocols; Trump has not (yet!). Clinton has narrowly, and many say unfairly, avoided prosecution by the US Justice Department (the head of which was visited, the day before its decision was announced, by Bill Clinton in a completely unconnected, “just happened to be passing” visit) for having a private email server for official government business as Secretary of State no less; Trump has some bankruptcy and a dodgy university to contend with but again this is not on par with exposing state secrets or being considered up for prosecution for doing so.

So I am not buying into the hyperbole and nor will I be regurgitating phrases delivered to me via a compliant media. I wouldn’t be voting for Trump either, I might add, if I was a US citizen but then neither would I be voting for Hillary.

US politics has reaped what it has sown and now it’s time to pay its dues and sinister fantasies about Trump being the harbinger of WW3 are just as much a fiction as the smoke clouds of virtue billowing around Clinton. The two heads, one body, monster that is US politics is dying of its own toxicity and the establishment parasites which have lived off it are dying also.

In short it’s the Arab Spring, US style, writ large across Western Democracies as average citizens come to realize that those who are supposed to represent them are not fulfilling the task they were elected to do and are now expressing extreme discontent by delivering spoiler candidates into the fold, not as a genuine alternate (although I think Sanders could have pulled that off until he turned Judas) but as a resoundingly Joker like solution to the failure of the system. As Alfred says in the Dark Knight, “Some people just want to watch the world burn”

In this context both Trump and Hillary are two fiddlers fighting over who gets to play while Rome burns spectacularly. I think Machiavelli would be very disappointed in both of them.