ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ : THE U.S. POLITICIAN THAT JACINDA ARDERN COULD NEVER MEET

The one U.S politician Jacinda Ardern probably needed to meet  to revive her 'progressive' credentials was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. But AOC's socialist politics was always going to prevent such a meeting. 

SINCE JACINDA ARDERN has achieved little of any real substance during her sojourn in the United States, her core supporters have instead claimed she won the diplomatic offensive. That's an easy claim to make and isn't based on any tangible evidence. But we are expected to believe that the domestic headlines generated by her Harvard address (which was entirely underwhelming), her chat with Stephen Colbert on The Tonight Show and her visit to the White House would of impressed everyone back home. According to Martyn Bradbury of The Daily Blog and sycophantic Ardern supporter, 'she generated a level of goodwill unmatched by the last five Prime Ministers combined.' Of course Bradbury did his research before making this big claim and this is not just another one of his many familiar 'reckons'. 

The  obvious problem for Jacinda Ardern and her Labour Government is that, to use a old fashioned expression, today's headlines are tomorrow's fish and chip paper. Her American trip is already being buried under more bad news on the economic front. In the last day for instance, the Auckland City Mission has reported that, such is the heavy demand on its foodbank services, it is in danger of running out of food this winter. This is not 'a good look' for a Government that declined to give beneficiaries and the poor that $350 payout it provided to the so-called 'squeezed middle'. Ardern herself has said that she thinks the recent benefit increases are 'sufficient'.

In the absence of any real transformative agenda, Jacinda Ardern and her team of spin doctors have always been focused on accentuating the positive. But in these post-pandemic days (sort of) Jacinda Ardern can no longer parade herself as the leader of her 'team of five million'  and is struggling to rebrand herself. But its difficult to know how meeting another centrist and ineffectual leader enhances her fading domestic reputation. And even that visit has got mired in a debate about the appropriateness of Joe Biden's 'social skills'. 

She needs much more than a chat with an unpopular US president to appeal to a electorate that remembers her 2017 election campaign commitments to fight poverty and climate change and now sees little evidence of any real progress being made. 

The one United States politician that Jacinda Ardern probably needed to meet was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Recently positioned at tenth place by the Washington Post as a 'potential presidential candidate' if Biden decides not to seek a second term, she has the kind of 'star power' that Ardern would no doubt like herself.  But she also comes with a definite left wing domestic and foreign policy agenda that Ardern instinctively shrinks from. 

The reality is that Jacinda Ardern has much more in common with the dour centrism of a American president who AOC has criticised for not implementing the progressive policies he committed himself to in return for the support of the American left.

AOC's agenda is clear: ''When we talk about the word socialism, I think what it really means is just democratic participation in our economic dignity, and our economic, social, and racial dignity. … It is about direct representation and people actually having power and stake over their economic and social wellness, at the end of the day. To me, what socialism means is to guarantee a basic level of dignity.'

In her defence of the neoliberal status quo, this is not a vision that Jacinda Ardern could ever support.