For the last 3 years, we have solidly accused Jacinda Ardern of being nothing more than the queen of slogans. And it has been absolutely true; she develops a slogan for every situation. Just think about it. “Let’s Do This” (we didn’t), “The Year of Delivery” (it wasn’t), “They Are Us” (nobody said they weren’t), “The Christchurch Call” (will you accept the charges?), “Hard & Early” (best not go there), “Team of 5 Million” (most of us can’t play rugby), “Let’s Keep Moving” (we never actually started), “We Have a Plan” (but we are not telling you what it is, because we don’t actually have one). I’m sure you can think of quite a few more. There will be quite a lot of them.
Our criticism of Jacinda is that she is nothing more than slogans and bumper stickers, and that is absolutely true when it comes to policy. Labour comes up with a policy, she comes up with a slogan and then she uses the slogan to refer to the policy. That is, by and large, all that happens… at least, that is all that has happened for most of the last three years. The policies, whether improving mental health facilities, building houses, reducing child poverty or solving homelessness, remain woefully unfulfilled. The slogan is all she has actually achieved.
And so we dismissed her as a lightweight, an airhead, someone who can achieve absolutely nothing. All of that is true. Yet she just pulled off something that people said was damned nigh impossible; she got an overall majority under MMP.
She can’t be that stupid then, can she?
Yes, she exudes kindness, but kindness doesn’t build you a house or pay the mortgage. After three years of no policy successes, she rode to electoral victory. There can be no doubt that she was Labour’s trump card. But how did she do it?
She is an absolute master of repeating things so many times that they became truths. Not actual truths, but once the seed is planted in people’s minds, and they hear the same mantra again and again, they start to believe it. Then they start to quote it. And somewhere along the line, the true position is lost. Jacinda is a master at this.
Take our favourite example. “Hard & Early”. National was screaming for her to close the borders in February, but she refused because she wanted her mosque commemoration. So how on earth, once the borders were closed in late March, can she claim they went ‘Hard & Early’ when clearly they didn’t? She just keeps repeating it. Over and over. Even during her election campaign, she kept repeating it. It became a truth. After all, if someone says something enough times, it must be true. Right?
Of course not. It is a bit like folklore. It becomes part of history, and the fact that it is not true is irrelevant. That is soon forgotten. Having heard it so many times, most New Zealanders believe that we went ‘hard and early’ in our fight against COVID even though, in actual fact, we didn’t.
“Team of 5 Million” was very powerful. It made her sound like a modern-day Joan of Arc, holding up her banners and leading the battle, with all New Zealanders brandishing their swords behind her. She kept referring to her “Team of 5 Million”. Everyone liked it. We were all in this together, fighting for a common cause against a terrible enemy.
Just think about it; when she is cornered by a media person (not often, admittedly) on an issue where she and her government has failed, her answer is often simple. She will say emphatically “I absolutely refute that.” And that’s it. She doesn’t give any further explanation. It comes across as strong, powerful and indicates that the subject is at a close. Most people would at least make an effort to explain, but Jacinda knows full well that she cannot justify her position. So, she makes her powerful statement, and gets away with it, time after time.
(Admittedly, if we had half-decent media, she wouldn’t get away with it, but you do get the feeling that she would just repeat her little slogan over and over until they gave up. Explanations are for the faint-hearted, not for Jacinda.)
There can be no doubt that National’s internal problems were the main reason why they did so badly in the election, but here, Jacinda dealt a killer blow. Every time National came up with a policy that might have swayed voters, she just described them as “desperate”. This happened over and over again in the last weeks of the campaign. Like her other slogans, it was stated often enough for it to resonate with voters. So, when undecided voters went into the polling booth, looked at the ballot paper and considered a blue tick, they were reminded that National was “desperate”. No doubt that their vote didn’t go to the blue side.
So Jacinda might be a hopeless administrator, but she is “kind”, she went “hard and early” and National was “desperate”. These are powerful psychological messages, and they worked, as she knew they would. Not everyone is fooled, of course, but Jacinda doesn’t need to fool everyone. As she just proved, 55% will be enough to allow her to govern alone and to drive National into the ground at a time when the country has never needed a strong opposition more.
How this will all play out over the next three years is anyone’s guess, but one thing is for sure. Judith Collins couldn’t win this election by announcing policies and promising that she will get things done. That is old school politics. Clearly, nobody cares about policy, as Labour came up with none during the campaign, but voters turned to them in droves. National needs a leader who can both present policy and play psychological games with voters because that is the only way they will trump Jacinda.
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