AUGUST 3 2019 LISTENER 11
LIFE
Negatively speaking
Sneering at
and ridiculing
its opponentsis probably
not the way.ST
EV
E
BO
LT
O
NBILL
RALSTON
W
hen we look at the bile
spewing out of the White
House and Congress, it’s
a source of great relief to
most of us that we are not American.
Our own Beehive and Parliament
generally look positively decorous in
comparison.
US President Donald Trump
appears to have ratcheted up the
rhetoric on four young minority-
group congresswomen who have
been critical of him, labelling them
“racist” and suggesting they “go back
where they came from”. Three of
the four were actually born in the
US, so it sounds as if The Donald is
suggesting they return to
wherever their ancestors
originated.
Thank heavens we don’t
have a politician advocat-
ing that those of us with
migrant backgrounds
return to the lands of our
great-grandfathers. I’d
either be in Paisley, Ren-
frewshire, near Glasgow,
or somewhere in southern
England. I have the most
boring DNA in the world.
Recently, I did an Ances-
try DNA test expecting
to find some fascinating
bloodline that would link
me to the royal families of
Europe, an Indian rajah
or Genghis Khan. Nope.
It was just a long line ofAmerican political
nastiness should
be eschewed by
our politicians.
dour Scots, who scarpered from the place as soon as
they could, and some more-sedentary English peas-
ant farmers. I digress.
Maybe the President is not suggesting the
women return to an ancestral home in Central or
South America, Palestine or Africa. When Trump
says they should go back to the “totally broken and
crime-infested places from which they came”, he
must be talking about Detroit, Minneapolis, Boston
and New York, the districts they represent. I hope
he’s not looking for votes from those “broken,
crime-infested” cities next year.
Leaked talking points for the President about the
four women, from the Republican National Com-
mittee, contain the charming line, “The despicable
rhetoric espoused by the socialist squad and toler-
ated by national Democrats is beyond disgusting.”
The “despicable rhetoric” seems to be coming from
both sides and has the nasty effect of encouraging
hatred and splitting the US down the middle.N
ew Zealand doesn’t have much of a history
of attack campaigning. You would have to go
back to Rob Muldoon’s “Dancing Cossacks”
ads in the mid-70s to find anything of that kindand, surprisingly, that ad ran publicly
only twice, such was the adverse reac-
tion to it.
Which is why I was surprised to see
and hear a Facebook post by Labour,
endorsed by Prime Minister Jacinda
Ardern, excerpting a testy RNZ
interview with National leader Simon
Bridges and commenting, “Bridges
has talked a big game on climate
change, but when push comes to
shove, he won’t back the action that’s
needed.” The soundtrack played over
a particularly ugly darkened photo of
Bridges. Another shorter ad suggested
everyone agrees with climate-change
action except Bridges.
Traditionally, while opposition
parties are consistently on attack,
governments ignore the Opposition
and its leader, preferring instead to
be, as Ardern promised when first
elected, “relentlessly positive”. I
would have thought Bridges was in
enough trouble of his own without
the Government feeling
the need to put the boot
into him in such a “relent-
lessly negative” way.
Ardern is a very effective
communicator. She has,
until now, relied on put-
ting up logical arguments
for the Government’s
position on issues, stick-
ing to neutral language
and projecting an image
of being reasonable. It
is a key factor in her
popularity.
If Labour is serious
about snatching the cen-
trist vote from National,
which it says it is, then
sneering at and ridiculing
its opponents is probably
not the way to do it. l