By Dr Ananish Chaudhuri

With Kemi Badenoch taking over the leadership of Tories in the UK, newspapers have been replete with how this represents a radical turn to the right. Similar headlines appeared when Labour was booted from power in New Zealand.

There was a time when I would have thought: “Shame. Why can’t these people not be more progressive, more empathetic, more caring of the less well-off and the downtrodden?”

But over time I have come to realize that the progressive position has little to do with helping the average person; in fact, progressive positions are often detrimental to that goal. And it turns out that anyone who dares to question the current progressive orthodoxy no matter how asinine it is, automatically becomes a “right-wing extremist”.

So, to borrow a line from Jeff Foxworthy,

You might be a right-wing extremist if you think sex is dichotomous, not a continuum.

You might be a right-wing extremist if you think a woman is an adult human female.

You might be a right-wing extremist if you think women should not have to compete against men in sports.

You might be a right-wing extremist if you find terms like “chest-feeding” or “pregnant person” ridiculous.

You might be a right-wing extremist if you believe that we should be a country where everyone has equal rights rather than some having different rights based on ancestry.

You might be a right-wing extremist if you believe that science is universal, ever evolving and not bound to a place or time.

You might be a right-wing extremist if you believe that free markets are good things that have helped millions around the world escape dire poverty and that, despite limitations, capitalism is far superior to socialism for improving the well-being of humans.

You might be a right-wing extremist if you think that Jacinda Ardern was an authoritarian leader who took an axe to our civil liberties in the name of protecting public health.

You might be a right-wing extremist if you believe that universities should be about a quest for truth and should not be forcing political indoctrination on to students.

You might be a right-wing extremist if you believe that the media has an obligation to report news fairly.

Everyone talks about how polarized the US is. What they do not understand is that every country is polarised because different people believe in different things, have different values and espouse different policy priorities.

The reason that the US appears polarized is that people with different views have similar access to media outlets.

This is not true for New Zealand where one set of views have no difficulty getting heard while another set struggle to find an outlet.

Absence of different views does not imply the absence of polarization.

Since 2020, when I was released from jail (oops, sorry; I meant to say stepped down from being department head) I have written nearly one hundred columns and done numerous interviews. Many of my columns and/or interviews have appeared in mainstream outlets like New Zealand Herald, Stuff, RNZ, Newsroom, NBR, The Conversation, and so on. (I even had a piece in the New York Times.)

Now if you look at these columns there is a discernible pattern.

When I wrote about non-political issues or things that were broadly supportive of the previous Labour government, these columns routinely appeared in mainstream outlets.

But when I wrote columns criticising progressive shibboleths, these columns appeared only in alternative outlets like The BFD or bassettbrashandhide.com.

Does that make sense? Clearly, I know how to write columns. Do I suddenly become stupid when I write columns that argue against the progressive consensus?

I have been highly critical of our government’s response to Covid; to an extent because these policies displayed little foresight, ignored much existing evidence and were used to circumscribe fundamental rights.

I have published a critically acclaimed book from a well-known international publisher on the topic. I wrote columns with leading scholars like John Gibson (FRSNZ) of Waikato who has published in scholarly journals highlighting many deficiencies in our Covid approach.

None of these columns ever made their way into a mainstream outlet here. Forget Gibson or me, media anointed local “experts” with questionable credentials were allowed to pontificate ad nauseum while world-renowned scholars from Stanford or Oxford were dismissed as cranks.

To an extent, this was an ongoing process with the increasing left-ward tilt in academia and media.

But I think the process became turbo-charged in New Zealand with the coopting of the media by the previous Labour government via the Public Interest Journalism Fund (PIJF). At heart, the PIJF is a good idea. It is in our social interest to have a vibrant media. But in accepting this money, the mainstream media agreed to endorse a particular political view to the exclusion of others. They have continued to express that allegiance even after that government was thrown out via the popular vote.

The current progressive movement has little progressive about it. These are left-wing authoritarians determined to foist their warped sense of priorities on the rest of us.

The Covid lockdowns were a boon to white-collar workers and wreaked havoc for blue-collar workers. They have had severe adverse consequences for children who lost out on their childhood vaccinations and their education. The negative effects were disproportionately pronounced for the less well-off. Shutting down small businesses while allowing big supermarkets to operate was a stupid idea. All of this will significantly exacerbate inequality in the years to come.

This was clear then as it is clear now. Any true progressive would have recognized that. But saying this during the pandemic would have earned you the sobriquet of being a right-wing extremist.

So, yeah, I am fine with being a right-wing extremist if that is the price for common sense; better than being what passes as progressive these days.

Dr Ananish Chaudhuri is a Professor of Experimental Economics at the University of Auckland

Originally published on BassettBrashAndHide.