In the culture wars, don't forget your rank

It's pretty gross. 

National has taken a hard turn straight into culture wars. It's gone hard on both coded and non-coded racism, there was some queer-baiting earlier in the year when Judith said after "Googling" conversion therapy, National would support any ban; then lo-and-behold when the time came to vote on actually ban it, National was the only party not to support the proposed ban. 

Chris Bishop did one of the most mealy-mouthed defences of their vote.

If you strongly support banning it, and you just want to make changes to the bill, that's precisely why you'd vote for it at first reading.

The bill then goes to Select Committee where it's the chance to make those changes. Disingenuous sophistry.

The reasons given in the debate to vote against it were spurious. Simon Bridges wanted to make sure we didn't criminalise good parenting, which is unsurprisingly the same argument made against removing "discipline" as an excuse to beat kids.

For years we've seen National MPs turn up at Pride and various other queer events, but then when it's been time to actually vote, and you know, do their job which impacts the queer community, they turn around and stab them in the back.

This comes hot on the heels of National's attempts to start some kind race war with its harping on about He Puapua and the attempt to stealthily 'Māori-fy' New Zealand. Then there was the horseshit about government departments using Aotearoa too much instead of New Zealand.

National is focusing on this shit to try and angry up the electorate. They are all hot-button topics which coincidentally sees National taking the side with the most numbers: Pākehā and straight people.

But those of us who wear the label "woke" with pride must not be divided. We will fight for the rights of ethnic minorities, for Māori, for the queer community, for intersectionality. And we must do so with class consciousness front of mind.

Because it's not surprising that the groups National is attempting to marginalise are also those groups who tend to have the least wealth. National is the party of the asset-rich property-owning class, and so they routinely work to benefit that group.

When there was legislation to try and give renters more stability and certainty of abode, National cried "won't someone think of the poor landlords?". When Labour (ham-fistedly) tried to get a Capital Gains Tax across the line, National very successfully convinced the country that Labour was coming to tax everybody's holiday home and staunchly defended the wealth of the wealthy.

We in the professional classes must not begrudge the hospitality worker's minimum wage getting higher. That's great news. Because what's good for workers is good for all of us who work for our money.

Being a landlord isn't a real job. Being a moneyed investor isn't a real job. Those are not workers. They are people who use their massive money hoardings to make more money.

Recently I tweeted out my support for the Federal Aviation Administration changing the definition of “astronaut” so it didn't include Bezos or Branson; and the number of sad billionaire-simps I got in response was bleak. Billionaires are not going to sleep with you. But they do fuck us.

We are all far closer to homelessness than we ever will be to being a billionaire.

So remember, when you see a minority group being used as a playground for the latest political bullshit, stand up for them. Because we are all stronger together as workers, than we are divided.