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Back in May, when President Donald Trump called for America to stop funding the World Health Organization, he presented a list of the WHOs recent failures: the organizations initial failure to flag the spread of the novel coronavirus; its initial failure to follow up when Taiwana country excluded from the WHO because of Chinese objectionsinquired about evidence that seemed to indicate that the virus could be transmitted from one human to another; its initial failure to press China to accept an international investigation into the source of the virus. At the beginning of the pandemic, the WHO, which operates as a specialized agency of the United Nations, seemed to be one beat behind. It also seemed overly reliant upon biased information provided by the government of China.

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Trump did not make this list because he hopes to fix or improve the worlds most important guardian of public health. This, along with his administrations announcement in September of its intention to begin withdrawing money and personnel from the WHO, was just electoral politics. Given his own administrations failure to react adequately to warnings from the WHO when they did finally arrive, Trump needed a scapegoat. What could be better than an unfamiliar organization whose acronym looks like a pronoun?

But although much of what the WHO does is of no interest to Trump, its achievements are real. Aside from its role in pandemics, the organization facilitates scientific exchange, compiling and distributing the results of international research. It provides medicines, vaccines, and health advice to the developing world, and is especially important in countries that dont have their own pharmaceutical industry. It has had many genuine successesthe elimination of smallpox is probably the most famousand wields enormous influence and prestige. The removal of American funding would damage its ability to help countries cope with the new coronavirus and fight many other diseases.

Read: The last smallpox patient on Earth

American withdrawal from the WHO will have another impact: Chinas influence will grow. And America will lose yet another battle in an ideological war that most of us dont even know we are fighting. For more than a decade, while weve been distracted by other things, the Chinese government has made the gradual rewriting of international rulesall kinds of rules, in many realms, including commerce and politicsone of the central pillars of its foreign policy. At a Communist Party congress in 2017, Chinese President Xi Jinping openly declared this to be a new era of great-power diplomacy with Chinese characteristics. And in this new eraa time of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nationChina is seeking to take an active part in leading the reform of the global governance system. Stated plainly, this is an attempt to rewrite the operating language of the international system so that it benefits autocracies instead of democracies.

In this effort, Xi has had assistance from other authoritarians, most notably in Russia and Iran but also in some African, Middle Eastern, and Central Asian states. Since 2017, he has also had assistance from the Trump administration. Helping China does not, of course, describe what the administrations leading members think they are doing. Former Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and others have been robustly critical of Chinese behavior at the UN and elsewhere.

But the anti-Chinese rhetoric of leading Republicans has hidden a deeper truth: A part of Americas foreign-policy establishmentand not just the part affiliated with Trumphas abandoned the language of democracy and human rights that America once used at the UN. It has also given up on international institutions that much of the rest of the world continues to respectinstitutions that should, in theory, be able to hold nations like China, Russia, and Iran to account. It has offered no alternatives. Instead of building stronger coalitionsor even new organizationsaround common values, this part of the establishment talks about realpolitik and America First, using the same nationalist and authoritarian language as the autocrats whose company Trump clearly prefers. It alienates allies, and offends the countries whose support we will need to push back against authoritarian influence in the decades to come.

Read: The WHO shouldnt be a plaything for great powers

Trumps announced withdrawal from the WHO amounts to a kind of playground taunt directed at China: You are cheating, so well take our ball and go home. But flouncing off will have the same result on the international stage that it does on the playground. The game will continue, but with different players.

Like every revolutionary movement, Chinas assault on the UN system began with an attack on its language. Ever since the United Nations was founded, in 1945, its members have been arguing over the words used in its treaties and documents, especially those that concern political rights. With great fanfare, a remarkable, polyglot cohort of international lawyers and philosophersFrench, Lebanese, Chinese, Canadian, all under the leadership of the former first lady Eleanor Rooseveltset out to write the UNs Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But when it came time to vote on the declaration, in 1948, Saudi Arabia abstained because the document supported everyones right to change his religion or belief. The Soviet Union and its allies, along with apartheid South Africa, also refused to vote for any declarationeven one with no teeththat began with the phrase All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.

That was just the beginning. Throughout the Cold War, Communist countries and their allies in the developing world always sought to replace all references to universal civic and political rights with the language of economic rights, the better to escape accusations of political oppression. As the Communist world grew poorer and the democratic world exponentially more prosperous, their arguments grew weaker. Still, for many years the UN was the backdrop for famous ideological confrontations. Many remember that the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev banged his shoe on a table at a meeting of the UN General Assembly in 1960. Few remember why: He was responding to a Filipino delegate who had expressed sympathy for the peoples of Eastern Europe and elsewhere which have been deprived of the free exercise of their civil and political rights.

From the September 2020 issue: Chinas artificial intelligence surveillance state goes global

This ideological conflict abated in the 90s. The West had won the Cold War; the Soviet Union disappeared. Briefly, the UN system, though creaky and out of date, seemed as though it might really become a source of international stability. But over the past decade, China has launched a new ideological battle in UN forums. As the Soviets did, the Chinese are arguing that economic rights are more important than civic and political rights. But their argument is stronger than their predecessors: As proof, they offer the story of their own economic rise. It is, of course, a twisted version of the story, because Chinas economic growth began only after its system became open and more free. Nevertheless, China is now marketing the idea that dictatorship produces faster economic growth than democracy doesthe Beijing consensus, as opposed to the old Washington consensus.

To make its argument, China relies heavily on the word sovereignty, which has many connotations, some of them positive. But in the context of the UN, it means something very specific. Sovereignty is the word that dictators use when they want to push back against criticism, whether it comes from UN bodies, independent human-rights monitors, or even their own citizens. When anyone protests the Iranian regimes extrajudicial murders, the Iranian mullahs shout sovereignty. When anyone objects to the Chinese governments repression of the people of Hong Kong, China shouts sovereignty too. When anyone quotes the phrase from Article I of the UN declarationAll human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rightsauthoritarian advocates of sovereignty dismiss this language as evidence of Western imperialism.

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China seeks to change other kinds of language too. Instead of political rights or human rights, for example, the Chinese want the UN and other international organizations to talk about win-win cooperationby which they mean that everyone will benefit if each country maintains its own political system. They also want everyone to use the phrase mutual respectby which they mean that no one should criticize anyone else. This vocabulary is deliberately dull and pleasant: Who is against win-win cooperation or mutual respect? But the Chinese work extremely hardtellingly hardto get this boring language into UN documents, especially those that have anything to do with human rights. Thats because they want to water down any form of accountability, to anyone, for themselves and for other autocratic governments; to weaken the role of independent human-rights advocates; to prevent any public criticism of Chinese policy in Tibet or Xinjiang, where a majority of the countrys Uighur Muslims live; and to undermine the Human Rights Councils already limited ability to investigate UN member states. The legal scholar and China expert Andra Worden has described these efforts as an attempt to turn the UN Human Rights Council into a shell, emptied of universal values a body in which individuals and civil society organizations seeking to hold governments to account for human rights violations have no place.

Alongside its attempt to change the language of our global operating system, China has sought to master and control the international bureaucracy, in part by creating institutions of its own. Members of the Shanghai Cooperation OrganizationChina, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India, and Pakistan (Iran, Afghanistan, Belarus, and Mongolia have observer status)all agree to recognize one anothers sovereignty, not to criticize one anothers autocratic behavior, and not to intervene in one anothers internal politics. China has also just launched an initiative on data securityto formulate global rules and norms that reflect the aspiration and interests of the majority of countries, according to a draft version of the proposalthat aims to compete directly with American efforts to do the same. But Chinese ambitions now reach into the UN system too. Whereas many of the Western diplomats who end up working at its alphabet soup of international agencies are those who couldnt secure a more interesting posting, China has for the past decade sent its very best and most talented diplomats. Partly as a result, Chinese nationals now run four major UN agencies: the International Civil Aviation Organization, the International Telecommunication Union, the Food and Agriculture Organization, and the UN Industrial Development Organization. Chinese diplomats have also run the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs since 2007, and the country has expanded its participation in UN peacekeeping operations.

From the May 2020 issue: H. R. McMaster on how China sees the world

Many of these organizations arent familiar to most Americans, but some of them, like the WHO, quietly play an important role in setting international standards and promoting economic development, especially in poorer countries. The International Telecommunication Union, for example, is responsible for allocating radio-frequency bands and coordinating the worlds satellites so that they dont interfere with one another. It also holds seminars and training sessions to help poorer states regulate new technologies. At the moment, that often means that the ITU looks on benignly as China sells its model of cyber sovereigntymeaning tight state control over online media and activityaround the world. Chinese universities have established close relationships with the ITU, so that whatever standards are set will be good for Chinese commerce.

Although the holders of jobs in these kinds of organizations are meant to be politically neutral, some dont hide their interests. Appearing on Chinese television in 2018, Wu Hongbo, a former undersecretary-general for the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, told a studio audience that although he was an international civil servant who couldnt take orders directly from his own countrys government, that rule had exceptions: When it comes to Chinese national sovereignty and security, we will undoubtedly defend our countrys interests. As an example, he told the story of how he got UN security to throw a representative of Chinas repressed Uighur Muslim minority out of a seminar held in a UN building.

When China cant get one of its own nationals into a job, it seeks to get someone who its leadership feels is pro-Chinese, or who is at least sympathetic to the language of sovereignty, win-win cooperation, and mutual respect. Back in 2017, when UN members were choosing a new director-general for the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, a former health minister and foreign minister of Ethiopia, paid a visit to China before the election, as did a main competitor for the job. Tedros was seen as more supportive of the One China policy, and in fact, the day after he was elected, he told the Chinese government that the WHO would continue its support of the policyimplying that he approved of Taiwans exclusion from the organization.

China also uses financial toolsinvestments, loans, and allegedly bribesto persuade other autocracies to vote its way, in the UN and elsewhere; to confirm its candidates; and more generally to build a circle of friends. The main formal vehicle for the distribution of money is Chinas Belt and Road Initiative, a Eurasian infrastructure-investment plan. Under its aegis, China plans to invest in roads, railways, pipelines, and ports, from Rome to Beijing, as well as digital infrastructure; more than 60 countries have said they are interested in joining. Much of this money is distributed without the kind of transparency that the World Bank and other development institutions traditionally demand. In practice, one UN insider told me, this means that if some of the money is skimmed off by local officials, no one necessarily objects.

Chinese diplomats also do their best to wrangle the language of Belt and Road into UN documents. The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs works assiduously to align UN development projects with Belt and Road projects, for example. The current department leader, Liu Zhenmin, formerly Chinas vice minister for foreign affairs, speaks of the Belt and Road Initiative and the UNs own Sustainable Development Goals as almost interchangeable: Both of them serve the purposes and principles of the charter of the United Nations, he has said, not least because they aim to promote win-win cooperation, in a world where sovereignty is the ruling principle.

Any one of these elements of authoritarian foreign policy, by itself, might not amount to much. But when combined, all of these toolsideological, bureaucratic, financialcan be quite a powerful force. China is now the de facto leader of a bloc of countries that believe not in the rule of law but in rule by lawcountries, that is, whose governments believe that law is whatever the current dictator says it is. Rule by law doesnt apply just to Chinese citizens living in China. In 2018 two American citizens, Victor and Cynthia Liu, came to China to visit a sick grandparent. They are still there, because Chinese authorities, who are seeking to arrest their estranged Chinese father, have prevented them from leaving. The arbitrary detention of foreignersAmericans, British, Germans, Dutch, and othersis also an Iranian specialty, and the Russians occasionally try it as well.

Rule by law can also be used against Chinese dissidents living abroad. Uighur Muslims in China are severely repressed; many are imprisoned in concentration camps. In years past, laws on political asylum would have protected Uighurs who managed to flee the country, but Chinese pressure now makes that more difficult. Members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization have agreed to jointly fight terrorism, separatism and extremism; each state also agrees to recognize the others definitions of what those words mean, so if China says a dissident is a terrorist, then Russia, Kazakhstan, or any of the rest will have him deported back to China.

These new norms are spreading. Thailand, which is not a Shanghai Cooperation Organization member, has bowed to pressure from Beijing and deported Uighurs who had fled the country. So has Egypt. Turkey, a country that until recently expressed support for the Uighurs out of a sense of kinshipthey speak a Turkic languagehas begun to arrest and deport them too. Even Uighurs in Europe report being harassed by Chinese agents and diplomats. When you stand against China, one Uighur dissident told NPR, you are a threat wherever you are.

Even those who are not members of a repressed minority can now feel the weight of the countrys influence. In June, a Chinese-born soccer player was kicked off his Serbian professional team after his father, also a soccer star, made critical remarks about the regime on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. We have grown accustomed to Chinese pressure on big multinational companies like Facebook or the teleconferencing company Zoom, which agreed to shut down the accounts of three democracy activists outside China who had planned events to mark the anniversary of Tiananmen Square. But Chinese pressure can now shape the management of a Serbian soccer club too. Step by step, in one region of the world after the next, rule by law is replacing rule of law.

Some Western countries do try to fight back. Human-rights organizations document the forced deportations of Uighurs. European leaders stood strongly behind the U.K. when a British citizen was killed by a team of Russian assassins who were trying to murder a former Russian spy. American politicians have protested against the detainment of the Liu siblings. Trump himself mentioned their story to Xialthough, according to his former national security adviser John Bolton, he dropped the subject immediately when Xi pushed back.

Inside the UN system, the rickety human-rights apparatus continues to function. Many volumes could be written about the flaws of the UN Human Rights Council, a body whose authority has been marred by its rotating membership. Authoritarian states compete hard to get on the council; seats are distributed according to geographical criteria that have allowed obvious human-rights abusers such as Cuba and Saudi Arabia to become members in the past; Venezuela is a member right now. Nevertheless, the council does have some small ability to hold member countries accountable, and to magnify the voices of citizens in regimes that would otherwise have no transparency and no public debate. Coalitions of democracies still band together to put pressure on specific countries. For nearly a decade, for example, the council has repeatedly renewed the mandate of a special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, an official who produces periodic studies that provide evidence of Iranian violation of numerous international laws.

Its not ideal. Still, Roya Boroumand, an Iranian activist who documents the regimes crimes, particularly executions, told me that the Islamic Republic has battled hard to save face and undermine the UN human-rights reports. If this was useless, why would they bother? she said. The council requires Iran to report and respond to violations, which flusters officialsand sometimes even persuades the government to shift its policies. Boroumand, who runs the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran (on whose board I serve), reckons that lives have been saved by this process. It is in great part thanks to UN pressure, for example, that Iran has reformed its laws and reduced the number of crimes for which it imposes the death penalty on juveniles.

Democratic countries do continue to use the UN and the international human-rights apparatus to embarrass the Iranians, the Venezuelans, and indeed the Chinese. But the U.S. is absent. In 2018, Mike Pompeoangered because the council had criticized Israeldecided to pull the U.S. out of the Human Rights Council altogether. Nikki Haley promised to pursue the advancement of human rights elsewhere. But where? And with what tools? Its true that Pompeo has issued fiery statements against Venezuela and China for human-rights abuses, but neither he nor any other American official sounds any longer as if they are speaking on behalf of the democratic world; they sound as if they are speaking for Trump. And everyone knows that Trump might turn around tomorrow and decide Venezuelan President Nicols Maduro or Xi Jinping is his new best friend, alongside North Koreas Kim Jong Un and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

In truth, the Trump administration is uniquely unqualified to speak on behalf of victims of authoritarianism around the world. Since the 1970s, all American presidents have used the language of universal rights. Ronald Reagan once said, A belief in the dignity of man and government by the consent of the people lies at the heart of our national character and the soul of our foreign policy. Bill Clinton said that Americas commitment to human rights was important because its the right thing to do and the surest path to a world that is safe, democratic, and free. Trump, by contrast, dislikes the language of universal rights and neutral, nonpartisan justice because he personally fears the verdicts of neutral, nonpartisan courts. He prefers the company of dictators because he admires power and cruelty. He dislikes Americas alliances because he has little understanding of how, historically, they have helped build American power.

David Frum: The coronavirus is demonstrating the value of globalization

He is not alone. Though Trump himself does not think ideologicallyhe operates by instincthe is surrounded by people who are more systematic in their dislike of universal rights. In a 2019 speech to the UN, written by his advisers, Trump spoke about sovereignty using language that could have come from a Chinese or Russian dictator. The future does not belong to globalists, he said, using a word popularized by the socalled alt-right. The future belongs to sovereign and independent nations who protect their citizens, respect their neighbors, and honor the differences that make each country special and unique. Every clause of that sentence was music to the ears of the Chinese and Iranian diplomats who want all criticism of their respective countries shut down. Respect neighbors is what the Chinese say when they want to silence critics of their autocratic policies in Hong Kong. Honor differences is what the Iranians say when they want to torture women who refuse to wear a headscarf.

Unsurprisingly, an administration un-interested in international institutions or even international engagement has found it impossible to push back as China seeks to dominate those institutions. As China puts more money and soldiers into UN peacekeeping missions, the U.S. scales back its own contributions. As China promotes its Belt and Road Initiative, the U.S. offers no alternative. The Obama administration did have a different plan for Eurasia: a pair of trade dealsthe Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and the Trans-Pacific Partnershipthat were designed to lock U.S. allies and partners in Europe and Asia into closer relationships. The Trump administration has scrapped both.

Read: Chinas bargain on global influence is paying off

While the Shanghai Cooperation Organization consolidates, American decisionsto withdraw troops from Germany, for exampleweaken NATO. The G7 is on life support. The U.S.European Union alliance is moribund. It took a few years for European leaders to finally understand that the U.S. president really does consider them to be foes, to use Trumps language, but that fact has now sunk in. On a recent transatlantic call, when a Trump-administration official exhorted European colleagues to join America in pushing back against the spread of Chinese technology, the initial response was a cynical Oh, so now we are friends again?

That doesnt mean America wont find some allies in the coming ideological struggle against China; other countries are also worried about the implications of rule by law. But it does mean those allies no longer feel loyal to the U.S. on the grounds of shared ideals. Instead, when Pompeo asks them to join his anti-Chinese political and economic coalition, they will weigh the costs and benefits and make their decision accordingly. Some nations will reckon that they need the U.S. more than they need China. Some will reckon that they need China more than they need the U.S. No principles will be involved, no conversations about democracy or shared valuesjust hard commercial or security calculations. As Chinas economic and military power grows, those calculations will continue to changeand not in Americas favor.

I began by observing that the WHOs faults are real. Let me end by asking whether its faults can be fixed. As China has become more powerful, as China campaigns for sovereignty and win-win cooperation, as Chinas clout grows within the UN, the leadership of the WHO, like the leadership of so many international organizations, is no longer able to hold China to account. American withdrawal will not solve this problem; it will make the problem far worse.

Post-Trump, whether in 2021 or 2025, some will argue for a return to the status quofor the U.S. to rejoin the Human Rights Council and the WHO; to sign on once again to the Paris Agreement; and to recommit to the old language of universal rights, transparency, and accountability. But the next administration may well discover that some of the UNs institutions, created for another era, cannot be saved. Authoritarian influence is too strong now, bureaucratic stasis too powerful. Besides, once burned, our foreign friends will be twice shy. Even if a President Joe Biden chants the old mantras, everyone now knows that his successors might not. Maybe someday President Mike Pompeo, or President Tom Cotton, or President Tucker Carlson will flip everything up in the air again. Knowing this is still possible, our allies will be wary of committing to any cause that we back.

Are there other models of international cooperation? It is notable that as politicians have squabbled during the COVID-19 crisis, the scientific community has worked together with remarkable efficiency. Andrew Pekosz, a virologist at Johns Hopkins University, told me that from the very beginning of the pandemic, scientists in multiple countries managed to share data, genetic sequences, and more. Networks of like-minded scientists developed quickly, he said; out of the limelight, there has even been some low-key, successful grassroots collaboration between the U.S. and China. Maybe other kinds of international cooperation could work like this too. Maybe spontaneous coalitions of countries that have an interest in achieving a particular goal and working together could make things happen more efficiently outside the UN system.

Listen: The Social Distance podcast explores what happens if the United States pulls out of the WHO during the pandemic

We already have one example of how that might work. At an online meeting convened by the European Union in May, representatives of more than three dozen countries and international organizations pledged more than $9 billion to develop vaccines, treatments, and new ways of diagnosing COVID-19. They also agreed to help make these medical advances accessible not just to their citizens but to the entire world. The governments of most EU member states were present; eventually, the list included the U.K., South Africa, South Korea, Australia, Israel, Canada, and Japan. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, along with some other big donors, have made pledges. So have a few nondemocracies: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and yes, China. The event was a good reminder of the wealth and power of the worlds democracies, and of what they can achieve when they work together.

The United Stateshitherto the most important funder of the World Health Organization, and the leading source of doctors and medical innovationwas nowhere to be seen. Nor has the U.S. joined the COVAX alliance, an international coalition formed to ensure that poorer countries get access to vaccines. But perhaps some future American administration will once again see the point of joining or even leading the rest of the democratic world, the countries that share our values, in joint projects. Maybe the U.S. can help create coalitions of the willing that will be more effective than the old international institutions in fields like health, the environment, even human rights.

But what will make other nations want to join these new coalitions? The WHO, like the rest of the UN, has authority and legitimacy because every nation of the world belongs to it. The authority and legitimacy of new institutions would have to come from something else: the power of their language, the example of their members, the strength of their commitment, and of course, thoughtful American leadership. A revival of our dedication to universal values is necessary, and a reform of the international system is possible. We just have to be led by people who want to do it.

This article appears in the November 2020 print edition with the headline American Surrender. It was first published online on October 8, 2020.

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How China Outsmarted the Trump Administration - The Atlantic

Election 2020

Analysis: They're beginning to register in the polls, but under criticism for policies seen as far-right and with only a week to go, do the New Conservatives really have a shot at making it to Parliament? Marc Daalder reports

The New Conservatives sure aren't Colin Craig's party anymore.

That's one of the first things the party's leader and Waimakariri candidate, Leighton Baker, wants to get across. While the old Conservative Party was a one-man band, this newer body is a grassroots political movement for democracy and family values, he says.

"The party is different because it's based on a team approach. There's no one person who's controlling the whole thing."

This is Baker's fourth election with the party and his second as party leader - he took up the reins in January 2017, a year and a half after Craig resigned in disgrace over sexual harassment allegations.

Despite his long history with the party, Baker has struggled to get the New Conservatives to register above 2percent in the polls, although he insists that internal polling has the party on 4.5 percent. His campaign has also been marred by repeated vandalism of party hoardings, allegations that a candidate lied about being a Cancer Society ambassador and policies that critics say are alt-right.

Getting over Craig

Under Craig, the Conservative Party was focused on social and family issues, with opposition to the anti-smacking bill kickstarting the party's support ahead of the 2011 election. It fared well in its first two polls, reaching 2.85 percent in 2011 and 3.9 percent in 2014, but everything fell apart when the news broke of Craig'salleged sexual harassment offormer press secretary Rachel MacGregor.

Craig resigned and Baker, who had himself resigned as a board member just three months earlier, ended up as board chair. The leadership position remained empty while the party struggled to reconsolidate its base. Baker himself raised the possibility that the party might not contest the 2017 election or would have to change its name first.

In the end, he led the party - name unchanged - into electoral oblivion in September 2017. The Conservatives garnered just 6,253 votes - 15 times fewer than atthe previous election and just 0.24 percent of the party vote. Two months later, the party changed its name to the New Conservatives.

That rebranding has come with a slight ideological shift as well, with the party focused more on culture wars issues - free speech, abortion, gun laws - that sound like they've comestraight from the American right. But Joshua Tait, a historian and expert on conservatism, told Newsroom the New Conservatives' politics arerooted in a sense of vulnerability about Western civilisation.

"The difference between the New Conservatives and most of our centre-right or right-wing spectrum is that totalising - although not necessarily coherent - world view that sees themselves pitched in an ideological battle against something that has all sorts of names,and I think none of them are particularly useful,but leftism, or progressivism, or marxism or cultural marxism," he said.

"Now ACT has an ideological vision as well, but it's a much more modern one - it's a neoliberal outlook that's quite distinct from the New Conservatives' vision, which is predicated on an existential conflict between a religious Western civilisation and the threat of secular leftism. In the New Zealand context, it does seem quite out of the bounds of what we normally expect our conservative parties to look like."

Culture wars

What does that look like in practice?

In part, it's a rejection of what Tait says the New Conservatives might see as secular moral degeneracy. For the party faithful, that means one issue: abortion.

"The recent abortion law reform has shifted a lot of the socially conservative voters who were upset that National didn't hold the line stronger against it, that New Zealand First went for it and ACT went for it and so on. So I think they're looking for a more socially conservative option," he said.

At the same time, however, he sees the party as less religiously-oriented than that of Colin Craig. It is instead much more focused on its own secular perception of Western civilisation - hence the references on the website not to Christianity but to Judeo-Christian heritage.

Paul Spoonley,a distinguished professor at Massey University and an expert on New Zealand's extreme right, made a similar observation.

"There's certainly a lot less of the evangelical and Christian elements, although they're still present. There's much more on rights and, in particular the idea that somehow rights to speech are being impinged and there are organisations which are restricting the rights of New Zealanders," he said.

Indeed, theparty has a number of policies addressing culture wars issues that few other parties seem to think are worth any focus.

In their Heritage Policy, the New Conservatives say, "Public statues and memorials to historic events and figures are an important part of our heritage and must be protected.New Conservative is the only party prepared to state a policy on this."

That's a response to discussions earlier this year in New Zealand (and perennially in the United States) about removing statues of colonisers, slave-owners and other historical figures who engaged in unsavoury acts. The party has also waded into debates about transgender rights and transphobia, insisting in its Gender Identity Policythat "there are two biological genders" and demanding the removal of "gender ideology" from educational resources like Mates & Dates.

Sharia Law and migrant pacts

At times, these policies veer into languagereminiscent of far-right extremism. Parroting American Islamophobia, the party promises to "ensure there is no conflicting jurisdictional authority in New Zealand, such as aspects of Sharia Law".

Baker told Newsroom he had seen no indication that anyone wanted to implement Sharia Law as an alternativeto the secular justice system inNew Zealand, but cited discredited reports of "no-go zones" where Europeanlaw enforcement are purportedly unable to investigate crimes as a disturbing precedent.

"It's preemptive. We've seen internationally where parts of Sharia Law were implemented," he said. "All we've said is put a stake in the ground and said this is New Zealand. We'd love people to join New Zealand. People from all over the world come here, of all different belief systems, whether they're Muslim or Hindu.We're saying come in and join New Zealand, the culture we have in New Zealand, but don't try and change us to what you have left behind. Just enjoy the different flavour we have here."

The New Conservatives also want New Zealand to withdraw from the non-binding United Nations Global Compact for Migration.

Signatories to the agreement pledge to do more for migrant welfare but are not required to make any legislative or policy changes. Nonetheless, the innocuous document has become a target of far-right fever dreams about a wave of migration from developing countries. The March 15 terrorist opposed the agreement and referenced it in writing on one of his assault rifles, prompting the National Party to remove a petition against the pact form its website on the day the terror attack took place.

That left the New Conservatives as the only party still promising to pull New Zealand out of the agreement.

"This is something that our Government signed us up for without discussing that they were going to sign up for it," Baker said. He claimed the Government only revealed it would sign the compact two weeks before doing so in late 2018, but New Zealand publicly signed up to a UN declaration in September 2016 committing it to work on the global agreement.

Spoonley said the New Conservatives are concerned about perceived threats to New Zealand's sovereignty - yet another potential vector for the attack on the West, in Tait's framing.

"There's a deep suspicion of anything that is international and the UN epitomises that. And there's often an explicit argument that those international organisations are working against New Zealand's interests," Spoonley said.

Can they make it?

But the party's leaders aren't the only issue for Spoonley.

"It's not always the leadership of the New Conservatives that voices them, but as soon as you get anywhere near some of the meetings or the online comments, then you begin to see this QAnon and conspiracy material starting to appear. I'm really talking about the concern with free speech, vaccines, 5G, the UN. There's quite a clear populist nationalist message which has conspiracies feeding it in various ways. I think they've found a constituency here which appears sympathetic to some of the fringe and sometimes the far-right views that have been circulating internationally."

Baker dismisses all of this, calling it laughable.

"I laugh at it, actually. I think it's bizarre. The reality is what we've stood up for is that families are really important, we believe in hard work, people being rewarded for effort, we believe in free choice, we believe in justice and democracy. I can't see anywhere where that could be considered far-right," he said.

For him, the party's central policies are the ones that touch on family values and proposals to reform the way New Zealand operates so that it has fewer MPs and more decisions are made through referendums, including binding, citizen-initiated ones.

Whether they'll have a chance to implement those policies is another question entirely. The party's best showing since last election was in the latest Newshub/Reid Research poll, which had it on 2.1 percent. That's still less than half of the votes the New Conservatives need if they want to be sending members to Wellington.

Baker insists the party still has a chance, saying the polls don't reflect the enthusiasm he's seen on the ground.

"I've been involved for about 10 years. I've never seen the amount of action that we're seeing at the moment, right across New Zealand."

He also pointed to the fact that the New Conservatives are one of just two parties (the other is Labour) to be running candidates in every electorate, including the Mori electorates. That's despite the party wanting to abolish Mori electorates.

'Historical hurdles'

Other political experts aren't so bullish about the party's electoral chances.

"There's always been maybe a 2 to 3percent constituency for this sort of conservative Christian party," Tait said.

"I think you've always had that type of voter group, probably primary evangelical or conservative Catholic, looking for a political party putting more emphasis on Christianity. And I know the New Conservatives tend to put it in a secularised Western civilisation language, but many of the voters are looking for a party that has explicit religious values in a way that National and certainly ACT or New Zealand First don't."

Jennifer Curtin isa professor of politics andDirector of the Public Policy Institute at the University of Auckland, as well as an expert on minor party politics. She told Newsroom that New Zealand's MMP system can only support a handful of political parties - tacking on a conservative minor party when the libertarian ACT is doing so well could be too much to sustain.

"How many parties can MMP in New Zealand sustain? The argument is that we can only have two parties on different spectrums. Around the centre, around the different ways of seeing a mixed economy versus a market economy, we know that for the most part Labour and National capture that. Then a party system like ours could theoretically sustain parties that voters identify with their postmaterialist issues. This might be where the Greens come in and potentially a party that's based on ethnicity," she said of research commissioned around the time the country moved to MMP.

"The argument is there's only really room for one more party, just by nature of the votes, the number of votes, the number of electorates and the number of seats - and the way in which voters identify, I suppose."

The New Conservatives also face a historical obstacle in that no party has ever entered Parliament without being led by an existing MP and having split from an existing party.

"No party ever has. There's some historical hurdles we've got to overcome," Baker acknowledges.

"There is definitely a cohort of Christian conservative votes out there in New Zealand and the first Conservative Party demonstrated that, by getting 3.9 percent," Curtin said.

"That seems to have dissipated - where those votes have gone, I wouldn't like to speculate. But the argument would be that, theoretically at least, our party system would only be able to sustain one of those parties, ACT, New Zealand Firstor the New Conservatives."

More here:
Will the New Conservatives defy the polls? - Newsroom

By Blyth Crawford, for The Conversation

Just as the global death toll from COVID-19 reached 250,000 at the start of May this year, a short film emerged that hassince been calledthe first true hit conspiracy video of the COVID-19 era. Titled Plandemic, it featured a lengthy interview with thediscredited scientist Judy Mikovits, who falsely argued that the COVID death tolls were being exaggerated to pave the way for a large-scale vaccination programme.

Allegedly orchestrated by big pharma companies in conjunction with Bill Gates, this scheme would supposedly kill millions in the name of generating profit. The video was removed from Facebook and YouTube where it had been shared, but not before it was watched an estimated8 million times.

The perceived danger of an eventual vaccination programme has been one of the most concerning and far-reaching of coronavirus conspiracy narratives. But it has also been linked to attempts by the far right to exploit the pandemic to promote its extreme ideology.

Similar conspiracies are prevalent within far-right social media circles, but many of them degenerate intoovert antisemitism, with claims the virus is a hoax engineered by Jewish elites intent on implementing a vaccine either for profit or to eradicate the white race. Onejournalist warnedthat the Plandemic video may be the first step in introducing new audiences into the depths of the far-right abyss.

By playing on peoples health fears in such ways, the far right is hoping tonormalise its viewsand make those of the political mainstream seem inadequate when it comes to explaining or resolving the crisis. And its possible that the pandemic may be increasing public awareness of and even participation in extremist discourse.

Arecent reportfrom the United Nations Security Council warns that extreme right-wing groups and individuals in the US have sought to exploit the pandemic to radicalize, recruit, and inspire plots and attacks. This sentiment is echoed in anote from the Council of the European Union, which warns that it is highly likely right-wing extremists are now capitalising on the corona crisis more than on any other issue. It adds that this focus may have led to an expansion in target selection, with sites like hospitals being viewed as legitimate targets for large-scale attacks.

The far rights focus on coronavirus has been reflected across social media. Onerecent reportshowed that between January and April 2020, hundreds of thousands of far-right posts about coronavirus were made to public Facebook groups. Meanwhile, conspiratorial narratives relating to elites a staple of far-right discourse steadily increased from mid-March.

Similarly, far-right groups on the encrypted messaging app Telegram have set up a range of channels dedicated specifically to the discussion of coronavirus, often amplifying disinformation. In March, Telegram channels associated with white supremacy and racismattracted an influx of over 6,000 users, with one channel, dedicated to the discussion of coronavirus, growing its user base by 800%.

One of the key ways the far right is doing this is by taking advantage of the staggering extent of misinformation and conspiracy theories surrounding the virus. The plandemic narrative is one example, but there has also been asignificant risein social media activity relating to the QAnon conspiracy movement, which has alsoamplified misinformation about the pandemic.

A number of these conspiracies have also been influential within theReopen movement, which advocates for the lifting of lockdown restrictions. This momentum has been harnessed by some far-right actors, particularly the Proud Boys, an alt-right, pro-west fraternal organisation.

This group has historically attempted to market itself towards the Republican mainstream on platforms such as Facebook bydeliberately avoiding the use of overtly racist symbols. Now a number of Proud Boys have been spotted taking part in anti-lockdown protests, with the groups president, Enrique Tarrio, framing the Florida protests as the point where the battle for the 2020 election starts. This suggests he is using the protests as apropaganda opportunityfor his movement.

Indeed, the spirit of the protests accords closely with narratives being propagated by some more overtly extreme facets of the right, suggesting the Reopen movement has presented an opportunity to popularise extreme anti-state messaging. For example, one alt-right figure used his Telegram channel to paint the lockdown measures as a power grab by the state, and an orchestrated attempt to ensure citizens particularly men remain slaves to society and the government.

Perhaps one of the most concerning groups that appears to have been buoyed by similar narratives is theboogaloo movement, a loose online network of radical firearms activists that has been linked to several violent incidents across the US. It unites a widevariety of people, some of whom have attempted to associate with Black Lives Matter, and others with neo-Nazism, with a commitment to preserving their right to bear arms and a shared desire to incite a civil war in order to overthrow the government.

In place of a rigid political philosophy, the movements disparate followers are instead bound byin-jokes and memes. But some supporters have also demonstrated a propensity for violence, with several incidents this yearleading to arrests, and three alleged followers now facingterrorism charges.

This activity has been matched bynumerous online postsreferring to insurrectional violence relating to the coronavirus. And unrest related to pandemic restrictions appears to have significantly boosted the profile of the movement.

Researchhas shownthat the conspiracy theory that the US government is using the pandemic to restrict American citizens freedoms has been central in influencing calls for a civil war. Some Boogaloo supporters also believe that the pandemic and subsequent lockdown have helped raise awareness of their civil war narrative amongst wider populations.

The pandemic has certainly been fertile ground for far-right messaging, helping give new platforms to activists and movements. While it is impossible to predict the long-term effects of these events, the potential for the crisis to spread some elements of far-right ideology to more mainstream audiences cannot be ignored. Shifting those people away from these ideas may be as difficult as tackling the virus itself.

By Blyth Crawford, for The Conversation

Blyth Crawford PhD Candidate, Department of War Studies, Kings College London. Blyth Crawford is a Research Fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) based in the Department of War Studies at Kings College London.

More here:
Coronavirus And Conspiracies: How The Far Right Is Exploiting The Pandemic - StopFake.org

Note: This article discusses violence and violent rhetoric. Reader discretion, etc.

It was only last Tuesday, which in the 2020 U.S. news world is about a millennia ago. On that day, President Donald Trump, during his debate with former Vice President Joe Biden, told a group called the Proud Boys to stand back and stand by.

The actual group, the Proud Boys, swiftly changed their logo to include Trumps quote, celebrating the moment on their online forums. [News organizations widely criticized the statement as a refusal to condemn white supremacy and violent militias from a President who has, intentionally or not, courted such groups in the past.]

Probably intentionally.

Even Merriam-Webster (yes, the dictionary) weighed in:

Because somebodys got to stand up for the truth.

The above clip from September 29ths chaotic debate has sparked outrage from op-ed columnists and celebration from the Proud Boys themselves.

The next day, Donald Trump claimed not to know who the Proud Boys are, but told them to stand down and let law enforcement do their work.

However, Trump has a previous connection to the proud boys: Roger Stone. Trump commuted Stones sentence for lying to Congress (see video below) on July 10th. Stone himself is an associate of the Proud Boys, particularly of Enrique Tarro, the groups current leader.

Tarrio also heads Floridas Latinos for Trump.

While Trump himself doesnt have a direct connection, there is a chain of connections. If he didnt know who the Proud Boys were before claiming so, well, that was impressively ignorant of him.

If you havent encountered or heard of the group in real life, and you arent the right (wrong?) kind of Extremely Online, you might have had no idea who the Proud Boys were before Tuesday. In the wake of Trumps comments, however, the group gained a lot of public attention.

So, who are the Proud Boys? According to the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, theyre a radicalization vector. That is, members of the group are likely to get involved with more extremist groups. Therefore, the group can maintain a sort of plausible deniability. In fact, the Proud Boys sued the Southern Poverty Law Center for labeling them as a hate group.

The group was founded in 2016 by Gavin McInnes, who (according to the International Centre) acknowledges himself as a xenophobe. He envisioned the group as a pro-western fraternity dedicated to celebrating western culture. Effectively just a drinking club.

However, they have established themselves as more of a fight club, showing up at political rallies and participating in fights (often escalating force) such as confrontations at the protests in Portland. In fact, one prominent member was arrested in Portland on September 30th.

In Summer 2017, amid controversy over the removal of Charlottesville, Virginias Confederate monuments, numerous far-right political groups organized a Unite the Right rally (heres a YouTube video reviewing the event).

That is: neo-Nazis, neo-Confederates, the Ku Klux Klan, et cetera. These protestors marched through the streets of Charlottesville with tiki torches. They shouted slogans such as blood and soil, white lives matter, Jews will not replace us, and you will not replace us. This rally turned violent (predictably) and one woman, Heather Heyer, was killed on August 12th.

McInnes and the Proud Boys were invited to the rally, but declined because, if we do go, it will look like were fighting for Nazis we dont like. This is consistent with the Proud Boys MO: they seek to distance themselves from more overt alt-right groups while maintaining indirect associations with them.

While McInnes and the mainstream Proud Boys group didnt appear at the rally in Charlottesville, their more violent offshoot (the Fraternal Order of Alt-Knights) was present.

So although the Proud Boys maintain some plausible deniability by disavowing and distancing themselves from devoted white-nationalist, anti-semitic, and neo-fascist views, the fact is that theyre closely associated with other groups that proudly hold these more overtly violent views. This has led to the Proud Boys being labeled as part of the alt-lite by hate-watch groups.

Since 2016 the alt-right movement has gained increased public attention as an influential movement in the U.S. The term was coined in 2008 by Richard Spencer, and is effectively a repackaging of white supremacist and ultra-nationalist ideologies.

The movement is a loose association of groups, not an organized whole, and is therefore difficult to reliably define. What unites them is their racist, nationalist ideology and their online activity, including memes.

The alt-lite is, just like the Centre for Counter-Terrorisms article described, more of a vector for radicalization into the alt-right. Alt lite groups, such as the Proud Boys, share a disdain for feminists and immigrants but shy away from more overt expressions of white supremacist ideas.

Alt-lite groups often keep their focus on civic nationalism rather than racial nationalism. The Proud Boys put their own focus on western values, avoiding any direct tie to the racial nationalism of, say, the KKK and neo-Nazis.

While individuals such as Jason Kessler, the Unite the Right rallys organizer, have a past association with the Proud Boys, the group tries to keep its public image free of that association. Kessler was apparently kicked out of the Proud Boys when he became too extreme for them.

However, this doesnt change the fact theyre more than happy to show up and exacerbate violent situations.

Summer 2020s series of protests in American cities, originally sparked by the extrajudicial police killing of George Floyd in May, has resulted in clashes between Proud Boys and right-wing groups in their orbit, and left-wing groups loosely called antifa (anti-fascist). This moniker has come to include the Black Lives Matter movement.

Although politicians have condemned violence on both sides of this conflict, its very important to note that police have been far more permissive with groups such as the Proud Boys than with antifa and protestors against police brutality. Consider the use of federal troops in American cities earlier this year. Consider Trumps insistence that U.S. political violence is primarily left-wing. (This is statistically untrue in recent history).

Consider the false equivalencies made by commentators, seeking to be evenhanded, between protests against police brutality (responded to with more police brutality, even in the absence of destructive tactics), and counter-protests (often protected by police groups).

See the article here:
Who are the 'Proud Boys'? The neo-fascist group backed by Trump - Kulture Hub

Mere hours after the President of the United States turned an opportunity to denounce the rise of white supremacist thinking in America into a chance to tell a hate group to stand back and standby, a new look at an upcoming documentary aims to shed some light on the very people most thrilled by the possibility of a white supremacist government: the alt-right. In White Noise, directed and shot by Daniel Lombroso in his directorial debut, viewers will go inside a spreading movement, bolstered by social medias reach and a cadre of outspoken leaders who think nothing of spewing hate to anyone who will listen.

The film is also The Atlantics first feature documentary and is billed as the definitive inside story of the movement that has come to be known as the alt-right. Lombrosos film follows three of the movements biggest stars, including Mike Cernovich, a conspiracy theorist and sex blogger turned media entrepreneur; Lauren Southern, an anti-feminist, anti-immigration YouTube star; and Richard Spencer, a white-power ideologue.

Per the films official synopsis: This film takes the viewer into the terrifying heart of the movement explosive protests, riotous parties, and the rooms where populist and racist ideologies are refined, weaponized, and injected into the mainstream. Just as the alt-right comes to prominence, infighting tears the movement apart. Spencer and Cernovich clash over the role of white nationalism in conservative politics. Southern struggles to reconcile her leadership role with the sexism and misogyny of her peers. Lawsuits mount and internecine fights erupt, but even as the alt-right fractures, its once-marginalized ideas gain a foothold in mainstream discourse; in Republican politics; in the establishment right-wing press, especially Fox News and on the worlds biggest social-media platforms.

In anticipation of the films premiere at AFI Docs this summer, IndieWires Eric Kohn billed the film a troubling and timely look at a trio of far-right nationalists behind its harrowing resurgence around the country. Through online conspiracy theories, fake news, and hate-spewing YouTube followings, these loathsome provocateurs are responsible from some of the most profound issues facing American discourse today as well as its impact on who makes it into public office.

White Noise will be available on demand on Wednesday, October 21. Watch the films first trailer, exclusively on IndieWire, below.

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Read more:
White Noise Trailer: Urgent Doc Tracks the Rise of Americas White Supremacist Alt-Right - IndieWire