Miller on Dotcom

Geoffrey Miller at The Diplomat writes on The Downfall of Kim Dotcom:

Outwardly, Kim Dotcom's campaigned against mass surveillance and for free tertiary education and marijuana law reform. But by the end, New Zealand voters saw through the party – officially registered only in May this year – and deemed it a vanity project designed only to win Dotcom enough political support to hold the balance of power under the country's proportional voting system and veto his extradition to the U.S. An unusual alliance with Mana, a leftist party advocating for the interests of New Zealand's underprivileged indigenous , seemed like a bold tactical move on paper, but was a disaster in practice. Dotcom's flamboyant lifestyle and seemingly limitless cash ended up destroying Mana's credibility of standing up for the downtrodden.

What's amazing is none of the comrades to Mana still see the problem. At most they just think they needed to manage Dotcom better.

Dotcom led party-goers in a repeated chant against the country's center-right prime minister, John Key. A video of the “f**k John Key” chant was uploaded to the official YouTube account for Mana and widely circulated through social media. But many New Zealand voters appeared disgusted by the negative campaigning against an enormously popular incumbent.

Yep. That was a significant turning point.

The fact that no credible proof emerged at the “Moment of ” to support Dotcom's much promised “big reveal” – which revolved around an outlandish conspiracy theory that New Zealand had granted him residency only to make it easier for the United States to extradite him – only added to voters' impression that he was a charlatan.

In May, Kim Dotcom described his pet political party as his “gift to New Zealand.” On election night, he was forced to concede that his very brand had been toxic. For John Key, Dotcom turned out to be the gift that kept on giving. New Zealand voters' loathing of Kim Dotcom and his tainting of the country's played no small part in delivering Key's center-right National Party a landslide victory.

What we don't know is if the damage to the left is short-term or long-term. But it has reduced the left's presence in Parliament to just two parties.

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