Political commentator Chris Trotter has endorsed the National-led coalition government. Last week, in his new conservative role as a defender of the status quo, he attacked Green MP Chloe Swarbrick for being a political 'extremist'...
IT WAS not a coincidence that soon after Chloe Swarbrick announced her intention to run for the vacant position of Green Party co-leader, the local Zionist lobby moved against her. Her use of a Palestinian rallying call at a demonstration, over two months previous, was suddenly of renewed interest. Once again, Swarbrick found herself being accused of 'hate speech' and 'antisemitism' by the very same people defending the slaughter of innocent men, women, and children in Gaza.
Of course, it is a well-worn tactic of the well-funded Zionist lobby to attack critics of Israel as 'anti-Semitic'. Even Jewish critics of Israel are routinely accused of 'antisemitism'.
But, against the backdrop of Israel's brutality in Gaza, accusations of 'antisemitism' against Israel's critics are wearing thin. The sight of local Zionists like David Cumin and Juliet Moses accusing the popular and well-liked Chloe Swarbrick of 'offensive' behaviour while they themselves continue to defend Israel's war crimes has been grotesque. It has probably only convinced ever more people that Zionists like Moses and Cumin have had their humanity extracted in favour of an unthinking loyalty to a neo-fascist ideology.
Arriving late to the 'Let's bash Chloe circus' has been former left wing commentator Chris Trotter. Despite professing to a Christian faith, the slaughter of thousands of innocent Palestinians has apparently also left Trotter unmoved. It is worth noting that he is on the board of the Zionist-controlled Free Speech Union. It has not only failed to condemn Israel's actions in Gaza but has remained silent even as Israel has continued to deliberately target journalists in Gaza. According to UN reports, since 7 October, over 122 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza, and many more have been injured. Trotter himself has never made any mention of this.
In a column first published by the Otago Daily Times on Friday, February 16, Trotter attacks Chloe Swarbrick from another direction. With the Green Party MP signalling that she would like to see the Green Party adopt a more consistent progressive politics, he has accused of her not only being a revolutionary zealot but an enemy of 'democracy'.
These are absurd accusations. What Swarbrick has actually said is that she is not interested in defending and maintaining the status quo. Why? Because she says 'Conventional, incremental politics has failed to rise to the challenges we face — those intertwined climate, inequality, biodiversity, and housing crises.'
While Trotter would like his readers to believe this is an 'extremist' position, it is a widely held view that much of the left worldwide has already embraced. In campaigning for a Green New Deal, for example, US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has expressed a similar view to that of Swarbrick's: 'We must confront the economic order and try to replace it with something that is rooted in both human and planetary security, one that does not place the quest for growth and profit at all costs at its centre'.
Similarly, Naomi Klein, author of Everything Must Change: Capitalism versus the Planet, has observed that, 'When we talk about climate change, we have to accept the fact that we’ve waited so long, procrastinated so long, we’ve allowed the problem to become so much worse. We’ve now reached a point when no non-radical options are left on the table.'
It is Trotter who is out of step with political developments, not Swarbrick. But his attack on the Green MP comes at a time when he has abandoned Labour and endorsed the new National-led coalition government.
Chris Trotter's support for the left has always been problematic, and it has never extended beyond support for the Labour Party. But, in the aftermath of Labour's election defeat, he has finally given up on Labour as well. After years of preaching that the only sensible and pragmatic course of action for the left was to continue supporting Labour as 'the lesser evil', Trotter himself has, ironically, given up on that failed strategy as well. He has finally woken up to the fact that Labour is a political dead end. But because his ingrained conservatism prevents him from moving to a more consistent socialist or progressive politics, his new best friends are now Chris Luxon, Winston Peter and David Seymour.
Unsurprisingly, Trotter's new right-wing views have been embraced by conservative media outlets ZB Plus and The Platform. Bizarrely though, his attacks on the left are being collated by the Democracy Project under the heading 'From the Left'. That's prompted Martyn Bradbury of The Daily Blog to write: 'How does Democracy Project keep pretending Trotter is left wing anymore? It’s like pretending ACT is a friend to the working classes.' Bradbury and Trotter were once close political allies.
While Chris Trotter might accuse Chloe Swarbrick of being an 'extremist' it is he who is the true extremist. Swarbrick is by no means perfect, but she is convinced that there remains a world to win. In stark contrast, Trotter's extremism lies in continuing to defend the present economic order that has not only benefited the few at the expense of the many, but threatens to kill the planet as well.
