A new retail politics?

9/10/2023

Today, POLITIK provided us with an important reminder about retail politics.

Retail politics is the shaking of hands, kissing babies, playing with goats and dressing up as Captain Cook. It directly sells a candidate to as many voters as possible.

I’ve been thinking about it for two reasons.

First, retail politics is very different from governing. And, I am left with a sense right now in the election cycle that we don’t “know” how the centre-right will govern. I don’t think it’s good enough for politicians to brush these questions aside with “That’s a hypothetical” or “I am not going to get into a coalition discussion with you now”. Voters ought to have this information. No single journalist has elicited this information. This organised silence – IMHO – undermines MMP.

The second thing I have been thinking about in relation to retail politics is how the online discussion is fueled by bots and dark money. It’s happening on both sides: even if the tactics are different.

On the left, we have the permanent online proxy accounts pushing out daily talking points. Their job appears to be to motivate and mobilise outrage on the left.

On the right, bot farms are working hard while we are asleep supporting BREXIT and Trump. When the sun comes up, they work at scale to spread racist tropes against co-governance, Te Tiriti and the “Yes” vote in Australia.

I can’t use my socials without being overwhelmed by political information and idiot accounts that want to pull me into their stupid debates about entirely unrelated matters.

I wonder if we will look back at this election and discover a fundamental transformation in how our politicians campaigned. While I’ll reserve judgment, a ‘new’ retail politics appears to be evolving.

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