What social-liberal progressivism faces, writes Chris Trotter, is a conservative populist surge composed of defenders of a status-quo that, if not gone, is, at least, widely perceived as going

"Progressive" New Zealand is terrified of what it calls the “Far Right”. To hear progressive activists, academics and journalists tell the story, Aotearoa is crawling with Far Right subversives, all of them engaged in poisoning the nation’s political discourse and threatening its democratic institutions. Fear of the Far Right is the prime driver of the quasi-official campaign against “misinformation, disinformation and malinformation”. New Zealanders are thus presented with the paradox of democracy’s progressive defenders promoting limitations on the freedom of political expression – the most anti-democratic measure imaginable.

The term “Far Right”, itself, requires precise definition. Though the expression is all-too-often deployed as an ideological marker, it is nothing of the sort. The term is descriptive – not definitive. And what is being described are those individuals and/or entities locatable at the extreme right of the Left/Right political spectrum. At this point it is important to acknowledge that the viability of this explanatory tool is being challenged with increasing vehemence in the Twenty-First Century. Exactly who constitutes the “Left”, and who the “Right”, is a question with no generally agreed answer. But, if ideological definitions have grown increasingly opaque, then the progressives’ continued reliance on the term “Far Right” must be seen as problematic.

The origin of the terms “Left” and “Right” is traceable to the French Revolution of the late-Eighteenth Century. To the left of the President of the National Assembly sat those who wanted France to become a fully-fledged republic. To his right sat those who favoured a constitutional monarchy like Great Britain’s. So, radicals to the left, conservatives to the right, with those still making up their minds (almost always the largest group!) occupying the seats positioned in the chamber’s centre.

Though the ideological dogmas of the radicals and conservatives changed over the centuries, the utility of these Left, Right, and Centre designations remained strong. The Left/Right spectrum was especially helpful during the Cold War of 1946-1991.

With the spacious middle ground of Western politics occupied by parties of the moderate Left and Right (in New Zealand’s case Labour and National) the new terms Centre-Left and Centre-Right were handy place-markers. In addition to the reassurance provided by the word “centre”, these new designations made the casting of communists and fascists as Far Left and Far Right that much easier.

That communism and fascism, at least in the English-speaking world, never rose to the status of mass movements proved particularly helpful to its Cold War political establishments. With the candidates of their respective parties attracting a risible number of votes, it was easy to depict their members as “extremist” and “fringe”. Certainly, no reasonable comparison could be made with Labour’s and National’s non-threatening occupiers of the centre-ground.

Hence the electoral utility of the terms “Far Left” and “Far Right”. By affixing the word “Far” to those unreconciled to the status-quo, the keepers of the political ring marginalised and trivialised them. Its use played a critical political role in rendering the ideas and causes with which their adherents were associated “beyond the pale”. Nobody pursuing a career in politics could afford to be labelled “Far” anything. In the Cold War’s consensus politics, extremism of any kind was political death.

In short, “Far Left” and “Far Right” was simply a more dignified way of saying “Bad Left” and “Bad Right”. The terms were expletives – not explanations.

That this was the case was amply demonstrated in those Western states where communism and fascism were not political causes confined to the powerless margins of the electoral landscape. For much of the Cold War era the Communist Parties of France and Italy were key players in their nation’s electoral politics. French and Italian political writers did not dismiss them as “Far Left”, they simply called them by their names. The same is true of the neo-fascist parties that waxed and waned across France and Italy’s post-war politics.

The terms “Far Left” and “Far Right” make no taxonomic sense when applied to parties or movements attracting not tens, or hundreds, but tens-of-thousands of votes. Numbers like that are a signal that ideas and policies once restricted to a handful of true-believers are now attracting the support of those who once would have been counted among the electorate’s sensible centrists. When this shifting of ideological tectonic plates occurs, as it did in the United States in 2016, it is only the people frightened by the magnitude and political implications of the shift who seek to damn and diminish it with the label “Far Right”.

Similarly, it would make absolutely no sense to describe the ideological hegemony of social-liberal progressivism and its twenty-first century “identity politics” as “Far Left”. Forty years ago, New Zealand’s tiny communist parties may have exercised a discernible degree of influence in some trade unions, but that was as far as their clout extended. They were a marginal force, cleaving to an ideology rejected by most New Zealanders as dangerously extreme. Though most politicians preferred to brand these activists “Commies” or “Reds”, a political scientist could call them “Far Leftists” with a clear conscience.

Today, the influence of New Zealanders adhering to ideas and policies that were once restricted to the radical fringe has become pervasive. What political writers once marginalised as the “Far Left” has morphed into an ideology that exercises a decisive influence across the judiciary, the public service, academia, the Māori middle-class, the news media, what remains of the trade unions, and a surprisingly large number of private enterprises. Between them, the political parties subscribing to this ideology attracted in excess of a million votes in the 2023 general election. To describe this latest iteration of the Left as “Far” anything would be absurd. Perhaps that’s why so many New Zealand conservatives have taken to describing the Left’s arguably dominant ideological superstructure as “Woke”. A new term for a new phenomenon.

The progressives’ precarious dominance of New Zealand society would certainly explain its fear of, and aggression towards, what it still insists on calling the “Far Right”. The relegation of the parties that had protected the progressives’ ideological hegemony to the opposition benches provided worrying confirmation of the extent to which those New Zealanders unwilling to accept that hegemony had mobilised electorally to defeat it. By calling their enemies the “Far Right” the progressives hope to convince any remaining centrists that the nation’s democratic institutions are at risk of falling prey to a dangerous – but tiny – coalition of capitalist libertarians, religious conservatives, white supremacists, and out-and-out fascists.

What they actually face is a conservative populist surge composed of defenders of a status-quo that, if not gone, is, at least, widely perceived as going. Contained within that surge is a significant minority of voters who formerly counted themselves as leftists. That they were content to make common-cause with those who, for most of their lives, they’d branded ideological foes only confirms how culturally threatening the ideas, policies and practices of social-liberal progressivism are perceived by those who grabbed the electoral handbrake. They have yet to reach the point at which a complete turnaround of the Woke juggernaut can be attempted, but it’s getting close – not far at all.

*Chris Trotter has been writing and commenting professionally about New Zealand politics for more than 30 years. He writes a weekly column for interest.co.nz. His work may also be found at http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com.