But not so Dame Jacinda. She's happy to bask in the almost slavish devotion bestowed on her by the world's pillars of higher learning, not to mention the equally fawning reception to her book and her movie and that's before we even get started on the many speaking engagements and panel discussions featuring her 'new kind of power' (is it just me or does this sound suspiciously like a solution she's peddling to global warming?).
And why shouldn't she take advantage of the world's seemingly inexhaustible appetite for shameless self promotion? As the celebrated American journalist H.L. Mencken famously quipped 'No-one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.' Or as the showman and circus impresario P.T. Barnum perhaps more pithily put it 'There's a sucker born every minute.' If our erstwhile PM can use it to her advantage by trading in on this universal desire to listen to the siren call of someone's solo trumpet being blown, then good luck to her.
For my own part I've never subscribed to the 'isn't she a wonderful and compassionate communicator' school of thought. While I have no desire to take easy pot shots at the woman, I've always thought she overplays her hand. Like a lot of people whose sense of self importance doesn't extend to a complementary sense of self awareness, she couldn't see when her behaviour descended into, at times, almost comical parody. Exhibit A would have to be her parading on the world stage the day after the Christchurch mosque massacre wearing a hijab. Far from displaying solidarity with the victims, to my somewhat jaundiced eye it was rather more a shrewd attempt to make political capital out of the event. And, what was even more dispiriting, it worked. The general public lapped it up. From that moment on a legend was born. The Jacinda Ardern juggernaut was on the move and there was no stopping it.
And look where we are today. A friend who has spent some time in the States recently tells me that, almost without exception, the two things that Americans know New Zealand for are Lord of the Rings and Jacinda Ardern. And both, one could argue, are the product of well lubricated publicity machines.
And similarly, people whose only information about her is derived from the image promoted by an almost entirely uncritical foreign media simply cannot believe that her feet are made of clay and her sudden resignation was prompted as much by self interest and a recognition by her that, as far as the New Zealand voting public was concerned, the game was up.
While self awareness may not be Dame Jacinda's long suit, self preservation certainly is. Hence we have the rather poignant situation of the only New Zealand Prime Minister who, after leaving office, chooses to live out of the country. Could there be a more eloquent testimony to her fall from grace? But because distance, as it so often does, lends enchantment to the view, her overseas reputation is seemingly undiminished. Her lustre is undimmed and the Jacinda legend lives on.
For this jaded scribe however it does make me question just how many of history's favourite sons and daughters have similarly been the product of carefully staged campaigns of unstinting praise and lavish adulation. And by the same token, how many of history's villains have been the object of ceaseless villification? My guess is plenty.
And so it may be that yet again we can learn from history. Or, in Dame Jacinda's case, earn from it.
And why shouldn't she take advantage of the world's seemingly inexhaustible appetite for shameless self promotion? As the celebrated American journalist H.L. Mencken famously quipped 'No-one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.' Or as the showman and circus impresario P.T. Barnum perhaps more pithily put it 'There's a sucker born every minute.' If our erstwhile PM can use it to her advantage by trading in on this universal desire to listen to the siren call of someone's solo trumpet being blown, then good luck to her.
For my own part I've never subscribed to the 'isn't she a wonderful and compassionate communicator' school of thought. While I have no desire to take easy pot shots at the woman, I've always thought she overplays her hand. Like a lot of people whose sense of self importance doesn't extend to a complementary sense of self awareness, she couldn't see when her behaviour descended into, at times, almost comical parody. Exhibit A would have to be her parading on the world stage the day after the Christchurch mosque massacre wearing a hijab. Far from displaying solidarity with the victims, to my somewhat jaundiced eye it was rather more a shrewd attempt to make political capital out of the event. And, what was even more dispiriting, it worked. The general public lapped it up. From that moment on a legend was born. The Jacinda Ardern juggernaut was on the move and there was no stopping it.
And look where we are today. A friend who has spent some time in the States recently tells me that, almost without exception, the two things that Americans know New Zealand for are Lord of the Rings and Jacinda Ardern. And both, one could argue, are the product of well lubricated publicity machines.
And similarly, people whose only information about her is derived from the image promoted by an almost entirely uncritical foreign media simply cannot believe that her feet are made of clay and her sudden resignation was prompted as much by self interest and a recognition by her that, as far as the New Zealand voting public was concerned, the game was up.
While self awareness may not be Dame Jacinda's long suit, self preservation certainly is. Hence we have the rather poignant situation of the only New Zealand Prime Minister who, after leaving office, chooses to live out of the country. Could there be a more eloquent testimony to her fall from grace? But because distance, as it so often does, lends enchantment to the view, her overseas reputation is seemingly undiminished. Her lustre is undimmed and the Jacinda legend lives on.
For this jaded scribe however it does make me question just how many of history's favourite sons and daughters have similarly been the product of carefully staged campaigns of unstinting praise and lavish adulation. And by the same token, how many of history's villains have been the object of ceaseless villification? My guess is plenty.
And so it may be that yet again we can learn from history. Or, in Dame Jacinda's case, earn from it.
Chris McVeigh is a retired KC living in Christchurch. He was previously President of the Canterbury District Law Society and, in an earlier life, a scriptwriter and performer for the satirical TV programme ‘A week of It’. This article was first published HERE
10 comments:
People believe what they want to believe. And everyone wants to believe it's possible to have a decent, loving, egalitarian society with kind, emphatic leaders.
Every generation, some politician's PR taps into those desires and says, look, it's possible! Here's that leader. The "empathetic leader" is almost always left wing, promising the socialist myth of a future utopia. A generation before Jacinda we had Lange and Kirk. Before them we had Savage and Seddon. In the UK they had Princess Diana, the "Queen of Hearts". Africa has been full of black socialist dictators promising the new post-colonial golden age.
All these carefully crafted public images never accords with reality. These people are all ruthless and unscrupulous. However the media and superficial people reject all the evidence, fearing it will take away their hopes.
We need someone to say to Jacinda's followers (like Terry Jones), "She's not the Messiah. She's just a naughty, naughty girl."
Mr McVeigh, if you 'cast your eye" across the Western World, you will find females who came 'from no where' and through MSM 'found fame & fortune(?)', along with media induced, adoring public.
If one things that 'drugs' are hallucinogenic, sorry wrong though, for females in the public space it is publicity - and money
Consider - females
- in sports, watch tennis and the reactions when they are "not winning"
- television, particularly those who conduct live interviews
- who are social media influencers, or appear on Adult only content - these people earn money for what they "peddle' and do so with no shame
- Politician, in Western Countries.
To highlight my comment - observe Kim Kardashian - money, media attention all over board hype.
So dear Jacinda has joined those ranks, and she is obviously exploiting her "charms' and whilst the MSM continue to "idolize" her (there are some in NZ who still do) - she will
" milk the honey tree for all it is worth".
Wow. She’s been out of the job for 4 years. Talk about living rent-free in older white men’s heads!
Ardern, the ultimate dame of woke and pretensions, is the living embodiment of the old adage: *"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time—but you can't fool all of the people all of the time."*
The international awards, standing ovations and glowing speeches may flatter her ego, but they won't rewrite history.
If anything, each overseas accolade serves as a reminder for her (living in exile) that while she may still enjoy admiration abroad, many New Zealanders long ago reached a very different verdict.
So let her bask in the applause from afar. In the end, the audience that matters most is at home—and that's where her legacy is ultimately judged.
I'm an older white man and she is totally irrelevant to me. I prefer the back stories of Meir, Thatcher, Merkle just to name a few.
To anon 7.08am
You would prefer of course (like Hipkins) for NZers to forget just how manipulative and destructive Ardern was.
Well, you will be disappointed as it is not going to happen - NZers must not be allowed to forget what she was and still is - a self serving spinster.
Ardern serves her own advancement. It seems H. Clark has nominated her for the UN/SG post (open till September.) Fellow traveller Luxon would endorse this nomination.
Ardern wrecked NZ . She will wreck the world under orders from her masters ( WEF or other).
Will NZers demand a referendum to support/reject her nomination - despite her damage ? Probably not - so they will reap the disastrous result.
Her government achievements were very few and far between. As 2018 turned into a dud, so did the much proclaimed 2019 "Year of Delivery". They did not know what they were doing only to be saved by the Covid road show, with the truly hideous memories of government overreach, manipulation, destruction and lethal incompetence to accompany it.
It was the media who gushed over her response to the Christchurch shootings. I thought she was okay, but nothing to write home about. The hijab thing very odd. Never one to waste a tragedy, she tried to introduce poorly written Hate Speech legislation to stifle any questions over woke ideology, even though the killers motivation was never published.
But it was her governments hidden agenda, co-governance and the ending of democracy's one person one vote moves that did it for me. That Labour were probably dictated to by "The Maori Caucus" another reason to go off this ideological blind party for good.
Then the wheels fell off, Arderns rule during Covid on top of all the other self generated problems made her a liability, she was staring at a humiliating defeat and chucked it in and went into exile. Hence this afterlife of admiration from people who never lived the Ardern nightmare. She escaped the bunker with a slither of doubt for the non thinkers that she was not as destructive as the evidence says she was.
She deserved that humiliating loss, but the media were never made to watch it and NZ was genuinely poorer in all senses, not just fiscally because of her.
What is it about NZ females the world loves? Dame Marie Clay was applauded by the prestige s Universities Harvard and Oxford as well and she has now been found to be a fraud.. It says a great deal about elite academia -no wisdom, no discernment and susceptible to superficiality .
Then there is Greta . How on earth did such a neurodiverse misfit rise to such heights in the media ? Same as Ardern , self-seeking and superficial .
How much more satisfying to be an honest nobody who does a good days work that genuinely contributes to society and is not destructive to others lives.
What is it about women politicians who don’t act like handmaids getting such hatred in NZ? We think ourselves progressive, but the ugliness rears its head on a cycles as regular as the moon. If we had better community there would be less hatred from these lonely isolated folks.
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