The need to go back to some mythical time in the past when things were perfect is a great theme for the Right, particularly when culture war madness gives them such enormous cultural ammunition and I thought it was interesting that Luxon is calling his current tour the ‘Get NZ back on track’ Tour…
…this message reverberates with an older demographic who see the past as better than the future but GeNZBOT doesn’t have the same ring to it as MAGA does.
Seeing as the issues we face currently have their roots in the underfunding of Key, I’m not sure where National now want to go back to. All their policy platform is slash and burn rhetoric with a promise to put kids in ankle bracelets at a younger age than ACT want to.
Strategically the danger here for National is that they are pigeonholing their message to a demographic they already own and isn’t enough to win them the election.
Gen X and Millennials are a bigger voting block than the Boomers this election, so any Make NZ Great Again type romanticising for Gen Xers amounts to a Rage Against The Machine album with 3/4 shorts and Blue’s Clues for Millennials.
National already have older voters, they need something to gain younger voters and playing to some rose coloured glasses nostalgia seems misplaced.
Since when the hell was NZ ever on track past the neoliberal revolution anyway?
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