Racism won the 2023 election

If you have been paying attention to New Zealand's 2023 election campaign, you would have noticed a distinct anti-Maori and anti-poor sentiment coming through from right-wing political parties, who have subsequently won in a landslide.

Some of this campaigning was clearly designed to get attention in an "Iwi versus Kiwi" sort of way. However, much of it is actually what the right-wing believes. For instance, many of those who support NACT want to abolish dual language road signs, not because they have difficulty reading them, but because they want to ethnically cleanse away any sign of a successful multicultural society.

Despite their obviously elitist strategy of making the wealthy richer at the expense of the poor, soon-to-be Prime Minister Christopher Luxon continues to claim that he will govern for all New Zealanders.

But you only need to recall some of Luxon's statements during the campaign, such as describing poor people as "bottom feeders," to realize that the National Party will divide New Zealand along class lines and cause many in poorer areas to again experience the difficulties of living in a third-world country.

Unfortunately, in politics, words are very cheap, and it hasn't taken long for the soon-to-be Prime Minister to flip-flop on his assurances (presumably to guarantee a coalition deal is struck with ACT Party leader David Seymour) concerning a worthless and expensive referendum on the country's founding document, the Treaty of Waitangi.

On Morning Report Luxon is no longer ruling out a referendum on the Treaty. That didn't take long to backtrack on pre-election promises.

— Ms WonderOutLoud (@MsWonderOutLoud) October 15, 2023

You might assume from this result that National's blueprint to deprive impoverished mainly Māori communities of even the basic essentials, such as free school lunches in lower socio-economic areas, did not matter to the electorate. But in reality, most voters simply were not properly informed about the implications of putting a far-right government in charge.

Instead, the right wing ran a fear-based campaign using incorrect information via a biased mainstream media that was designed to keep Christopher Luxon in the spotlight. Their predominantly elderly white target audience, who are shielded away in the safety of their gated communities from any ramifications of the class warfare they support, lapped up the right-wings propaganda like never before.

This result is a win for racism and the power of disinformation as much as it is a win for the National and ACT Party.