It’s a funny thing.

I caught myself thinking earlier today that, no matter how many stereotypical “old person” stereotypes I end up performing, as I move ever closer to being called “elderly” – that I’ll never vote for New Zealand First.

That’s a point of pride.

I stand by the claims I’ve made in the past that Winston Peters is the weakest politician this country has ever known.
A populist, who by definition, has no spine – he only bends in whichever direction the wind is blowing for he has no principles nor values to prop him up on his own.
A bully, who only ever punches down but never up.
You’ll never hear him speak a word of criticism against Donald Trump or Netanyahu*, but he’ll eagerly attack those with less ability to defend themselves - primarily because he comes with his own inbuilt audience of cultists who’ll attack whomever he targets - such as Andrea Vance, Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan, or even those whose very job security is wholly determined by Peters’ mood, as Phil Goff found out last year.
Many may recall that Jack Tame’s job on Q&A was implicitly threatened, on screen, by Peters last election - just because he felt uncomfortable with the questions he was asked.
The ghost of Muldoon was well and truly present that day.
I long for the day the old dinosaur is finally sent into his retirement pen.

As with Muldoon, history won’t be kind to him either. I'm confident of that.

The point of this isn’t just to point out the follies of our ineffectual politicians.
It’s to show that I suspect there’s a buck in a very old trend.

There’s an old quote, wrongly attributed to Churchill and probably more accurately attributed to a 19^th century French academic that says something like “if you’re not a liberal when you’re young – you have no heart, if you’re not a conservative when you’re older – you have no brain”, or some variation on this bullshit theme.

I suspect there may have been some truth to it at some point.
However, I find that the older I get – the more woke I become.

Sure, my ideological predilections get tempered more and more with a sense of pragmatism as I age.
Once upon a time, I was a member of the communist choir – actively encouraging the start of a violent communist revolution – where we get to (finally!) eat the rich cunts and take ownership of the mode of production.

But as I get older, I find myself sympathising more and more with some of the communists of PRE-revolution Russia.
Those who saw their role more as an educational one – letting people know there’s a better way of doing things – and waiting for the right time to show the alternative as a solution during a tense crisis.

Of course, such opportunity never manifested during their lifetime, but my point is that my age is now showing me that there are two paths to changing the course of a river – where one is arguably likely to be yield success than the other; One can stand in the middle of the river – yelling at it to change course, or one can do what they can to slowly dig out an alternative path – and wait for the river to follow that new course.
As I get older, I’ve stopped yelling at the river and instead joined those who opt for the slower – more practical – route.

But I have not become more conservative.
The fire of rage and frustration that fueled my river yelling when I was younger, persists.
That’s because no other solution has yet presented itself.

The world is on fire.
The future looks bleak.
People are struggling to afford even the most basic of life’s necessities.
Inequality persists wherever anyone dare look.
Apathy and ignorance are the norms.
Aspects of our private lives - such as our own suffering, or even how we go about deciding what to wear on any given day - are being turned into a commodity to be consumed on platforms programmed to deliver entertainment.
Leadership, at every level, fails to inspire even the most cursory glance at the longer term - where we're all headed.

I look to our upcoming election with dread.

National seem to equate human flourishing with some metric of economic performance. They always have, that’s not exactly new. But I maintain that it’s insulting to reduce the entirety of the human race’s vast range of experiences to a single measure. A measure they suppose is the only one relevant in quantifying human prosperity.
Labour used to at least pretend they represented the working class - but even a quick glance of their position on the official political compass (which, admittedly, measures left vs right on traditional economic factors, not the more modern social/moral dimension) shows that they’ve been flirting more and more with the centre ground since 2008. I haven’t seen anything in their current campaign to suggest they represent the working class even now. It’s fair to say, then, that Labour is not the worker’s party.
In fact, nobody seems to be.

As someone who’s an elder millennial, educated, woke AF but not affiliated with tribal politics, yet who sees the status quo as something that not just needs changing – but where the very function and funding of government is something that needs to be revised (because clearly the most important things to fund right now are not being adequately funded) and accepts climate change as real where its immediate consequences are unfolding right in front of us RIGHT NOW although nobody seems to be taking any meaningful action about it (in fact, this government is doing quite the opposite)….
Where is our home?
Where do we turn to?
Who is there to inspire and reassure us that there is a plan forward and everything will be okay?
Who is there to represent the aging millennial activist who doesn’t care for tribalism, but only wants to ensure that subsequent generations are given a world where they can make something of themselves – a gift, we ourselves were never given?

Is there anyone?

_____

* I have spent the last several hours engaging with different AI platforms to find a single instance of either - none have been able to provide an example.