The progressive NZ media

Ananish Chaudhuri writes:

Since 2020, when I was released from jail (oops, sorry; I meant to say stepped down from being department head) I have written nearly one hundred columns and done numerous interviews. Many of my columns and/or interviews have appeared in mainstream outlets like New Zealand Herald, Stuff, RNZ, Newsroom, NBR, The Conversation, and so on. (I even had a piece in the New York Times.)

Now if you look at these columns there is a discernible pattern.

When I wrote about non-political issues or things that were broadly supportive of the previous Labour government, these columns routinely appeared in mainstream outlets.

But when I wrote columns criticising progressive shibboleths, these columns appeared only in alternative outlets like The BFD or bassettbrashandhide.com.

Does that make sense? Clearly, I know how to write columns.  Do I suddenly become stupid when I write columns that argue against the progressive consensus?

A good example of this is the outrageous and illegal behaviour of schools encouraging their students to take part in a partisan protest march. As far as I know, there has been zero coverage of this in the print media, because of course they all support the protest march.

But I think the process became turbo-charged in New Zealand with the coopting of the media by the previous Labour government via the Public Interest Journalism Fund (PIJF). At heart, the PIJF is a good idea. It is in our social interest to have a vibrant media. But in accepting this money, the mainstream media agreed to endorse a particular political view to the exclusion of others. They have continued to express that allegiance even after that government was thrown out via the popular vote.

The current progressive movement has little progressive about it. These are left-wing authoritarians determined to foist their warped sense of priorities on the rest of us.

This is a large part of why Trump won. Voters put aside his deficiencies because they saw him as the lesser evil against an authoritarian movement that doesn’t tolerate dissent on shibboleths such as race and gender.

The Covid lockdowns were a boon to white-collar workers and wreaked havoc for blue-collar workers. They have had severe adverse consequences for children who lost out on their childhood vaccinations and their education. The negative effects were disproportionately pronounced for the less well-off. Shutting down small businesses while allowing big supermarkets to operate was a stupid idea. All of this will significantly exacerbate inequality in the years to come.

This was clear then as it is clear now. Any true progressive would have recognized that. But saying this during the pandemic would have earned you the sobriquet of being a right-wing extremist.

So, yeah, I am fine with being a right-wing extremist if that is the price for common sense; better than being what passes as progressive these days.

The left are very good at pushing people over to the right.