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I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Chlöe absolutely deserves to be co-leader of the Greens. And I mean that as a compliment in the best way possible.
The problem is that, while there is no doubt she’s smart (after all, she has a law degree), she totally lacks wisdom.
She’s smart enough to know that electric cars are much cleaner than petrol cars when it comes to emissions from driving. But she lacks the wisdom to look at the whole picture and see that overall EVs cause much more harm.
She has the intelligence to understand what’s happening between Israel and the Palestinians but lacks the wisdom to go and find out for herself.
She has the intelligence to know that kids should be discouraged from smoking (actually a no brainer), but lacks the wisdom to know that simply banning tobacco won’t work. I won’t get into the cognitive dissonance regarding wanting cannabis legal and tobacco illegal. (As an aside she and the New Zealand Drug Foundation totally screwed up the Cannabis Referendum but I won’t get into that here.)
Having said all this, there’s no doubt she has passion (although it could be said that there’s a fine line between passion and fanaticism), something that’s lacking in most politicians who seem to be more interested in keeping their seats than serving the public. If she were centre-right there’s no doubt she would have made a much better opposition leader than Chris Luxon.
To slightly modify an old adage, if you’re not a socialist by the time you’re 20, you have no heart, and if you’re not a capitalist by the time you’re 40 you have no wisdom. Here’s hoping this applies to her, because if she ever decides to go over to the dark side, there is no doubt in my mind she would make a very valuable asset.
