The complete annihilation of Labour was great to see, but the election as a whole was a mixed bag. The young progressives turned out well for the Greens and the Maori Party. In some European countries, Labour parties have even become obsolete, merging with their Green counterparts. We're not at that stage here, but you can see the foundations of that future being laid. Even with a massive amount of mainstream media backing, TOP only increased their vote by a fraction, proving beyond a doubt that we're stuck with 6 viable political parties for the next while.
The National Party also brings its reckoning with its conservative-liberal contradiction one step closer. The liberal wing worked with the anti-Christian ACT Party to unseat the one vocal socially conservative MP in Parliament. While a few more "sleeper agent" conservatives picked up electorate seats at the election, this tactic against O'Connor was executed as a warning: keep your mouth shut and stay in line, or else.
My most controversial opinion is that Simon O'Connor deserved this defeat. While he spoke out for us on occasion, he also always apologised and backed down when pressured. I hope he learns this hard personal lesson: never apologise, never back down. The sharks can smell blood in the water.
The good news is that Christopher Luxon is being hailed "fundamentalist Christian" abroad and at home. We need to apply pressure to make this label stick and do what we can to make him live up to it in some small way. I pray that God will make Christopher Luxon one-tenth the fundamentalist our enemies fear he is.
We need to back this government to the hilt for every small thing they do right, and we need to scream blue murder every time they do something wrong. The progressive elements in this government are very strong and we need to make them as uncomfortable as we can.
We must also never forget that we don't hate journalists enough. We must be relentless in the war we wage against the journalist class and their allies.
Winston Peters put the "freedom movement" candidates far enough down his list to keep them out of Parliament, but high enough to gather in their voters. We'll have to see if they get any value for their votes or whether they're organised enough to demand it. This part of the election story is still to be written.
The value of ex-MPs also remains questionable. Matt King picked up 0.2% and Alfred Ngaro increased the vote of the ONE Party by about 0.2% (to 0.5%). That's not particularly good value for a stint in Parliament.
This election was the final nail in the coffin of "socially conservative" as a political concept in New Zealand for the foreseeable future.
We suffered a complete loss of our votes to NZ First. There is simply no voter base for socially conservative issues, even if the constituency is theoretically one-third of the electorate. There are no activist organisations willing and able to direct those votes to a traditional conservative party over the long-term. It seems almost certain that we will have to follow our voters and merge the political party operations of the New Conservatives into New Zealand First. We will continue on as partisan political activists working towards reactionary right-wing ends, so stay tuned for news there as we reforge the party into something more powerful in the next 6 months.
Unfortunately the "long defeat" strategy of the neoconservative evangelical boomers continues—but perhaps with enough pressure we have an opportunity to "pause" progressivism for the next 9 years and use that time wisely.