Jacinda Ardern’s ‘small group’ delusion

On Wednesday we reported on how Jacinda Ardern was forced to cancel a visit to a Whanganui jab centre because a crowd of angry locals was there to protest.

The protesters caused her to divert to the local council building where she gave a press conference.

A reporter asked her, ‘Are you surprised at the level of hostility towards you, and the vaccine roll-out?’

She replied, ‘No, and nor am I taking that personally…Of course we do know there are a small group, a small group, who hold very strong views on vaccinations, possibly not just this one but other vaccines as well, but they do not represent possibly, the majority of people who have not yet been vaccinated.’

In her view therefore:

• The public hostility is not aimed at her personally, and
• The people protesting are a small group of ‘anti-vaxxers’.

This is delusional. The hostility is aimed at her personally, and the growing tide of resentment towards her is broad in spectrum, and not just about the jab.

A little over a year ago the Prime Minister held, by and large, the adulation of the nation. If she took a walk in public, crowds of well-wishers and supporters would gather around, looking for selfies and a chance to have some sort of interaction with her.

Oh how things have changed.

There’s no way in today’s environment that Ardern could take an impromptu or planned public walkabout without a Labour rent-a-crowd and significant numbers of security. She would be accosted by angry kiwis wherever she went. Of late, she suspiciously appears to be changing her itinerary in order to avoid public appearances, or the risk of confronting angry crowds.

Social media is full of videos showing either random individuals, or groups of people, abusing and/or voicing their displeasure at her.

Ardern does have a core group of support, people who think she’s done an ‘amazing job’, but what I have noticed is that the majority of this support is female and of a certain age group. Ironically, it’s that core group of support for the Prime Minister which is small. It’s certainly not ‘broad spectrum’, as the growing opposition to her is.

One of the heartening things seen with the Hikoi of Sovereign Truth was the wide cross-section of society represented in the crowd as it made its way onto the Te Tii marae at Waitangi. They were Maori and Pakeha, young and old. Many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of kiwis from all walks of life and cultures, united as one.

There are a multitude of videos online, uploaded by kiwis, voicing their disgust and concern at the way Ardern is running the country. I am yet to see similar videos aimed at Bloomfield, Baker or Hipkins, though they are just as guilty as her in this crisis. The disgust is aimed squarely at Ardern.

In my typical day I meet a lot of kiwis and understandably the conversation will turn to the current situation in our country. Without exception, everyone is angry about it, and they’re angry at Ardern. They often voice these opinions without prompting, as if they have an anger and frustration inside which they need to release. I can only describe their vitriol towards Ardern as ‘intense’. I’ve never experienced that level of hatred towards a New Zealand leader before. Yes some people didn’t like Helen Clark, and some didn’t like John Key, but they did not wish them serious harm. The hatred towards Ardern is on another level. They are not ‘anti-vaxxers’. Many who voice anti-Ardern opinions have been jabbed. They’re angry because the mandates, which they feel compelled to enforce, have divided their families and businesses. They’re angry because they’ve been forced to take the jab to keep their job. They’re angry because they’ve lost friends and the security we all took for granted for so long.

In the wake of the Christchurch terror attacks, the White Island tragedy and New Zealand’s initial response to the pandemic in March 2020, the Prime Minister quite rightly was a source of inspiration and common sense, a person most New Zealanders were proud of.

The memory of that sentiment is now long gone. Her ‘Be Kind’ message, which once instilled hope and trust, has turned into a gigantic mound of steaming bollocks as she implements policies to deliberately exclude detractors and the unjabbed from civil society, and desperately tries to quell public protest. These policies are immoral, and will be studied by history students one day as the catalyst for the New Zealand revolution. Whatever happens, trust in our institutions, the mainstream media, the politicians, academia, courts, police and army is being eroded beyond repair. The social conflict caused by the Muldoon constitutional crisis, the Waterfront strikes, the 1981 Springbok Tour will pale in comparison with what is coming, and what Ardern seems intent on cooking up.

Prime Minister, the vitriol kiwis have is most definitely aimed personally at you. You are the face of medical apartheid. You are destroying businesses. You are turning mate against mate, brother against brother, sister against sister with your immoral and unjustified mandates. The people are waking up to what you really are: a puppet of powerful foreign interests, intent on forcing a totalitarian agenda on our once free and independent nation.

Ardern’s second claim that the protesters represent a ‘small group’ made up primarily of hardcore ‘anti-vaxxers’ is also delusional, and has been addressed above.

The protests cannot be characterised as just an ‘anti-vaxxer thing.’ There is a strong element of this of course, but it’s message is broader than that. It’s about freedom, government lies and the beginnings of what many kiwis believe is a Gestapo, out of control and non-transparent state. The opposition to her policies is across the board, jabbed and unjabbed, Maori and Pakeha, rich and poor, young and old. They are all concerned and worried with the direction our country is going in, and instinctively know, with Ardern at the helm, and her ‘be kind’ message exposed as a horrifying fraud, things are only going to get worse.