Jamie Mackay: Winston Peters - if the MAGA cap fits, wear it

Winston Peters amongst the Wellington protesters in February. Photo / Mark Mitchell

OPINION:

This column is about Donald Trump and Winston Peters. And why, if the MAGA cap fits, wear it.

Way back in 2018 BC (Before Covid) when international travel was still a thing, I led a group of intrepid Kiwis on a farming tour to the US.

It was back in the days when Air New Zealand flew directly to such exotic locales as Houston. After a fascinating tour of the Nasa Johnson Space Centre and a few photo-ops at the George H W Bush statue in downtown Houston, we took a flight to bluegrass country. Yup, Lexington Kentucky, the thoroughbred horse-racing capital of the world.

From there it was on to Louisville (and the Muhammad Ali Museum), Nashville (surprisingly, one of the coolest cities I've been to), Memphis (to pay our dues to Martin Luther King Jr and Elvis Presley) then down the Mississippi to party town New Orleans for a bit of jambalaya, crawfish pie and gumbo.

The reason for this geography lesson about the midwest and southern states was because for the entire time we were there, I never met an American who did not vote for Trump in 2016, let alone not support him two years later. While the east and west coasts vote Democrat, heartland America is staunch Republican. Much like provincial New Zealand was for the National Party until 2020.

I've long been fascinated by American politics and presidents. John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama are my personal favourites. Trump is my least favourite (cue the hate comments from the right) but maybe he's the most memorable. His deplorable behaviour around the 2021 Capitol riots plumbed depths none of the other 44 Commander-in-Chiefs have ever sunk to.

Occasionally I flick across to Fox TV, just to remind me how relatively balanced our much-maligned media is. So imagine my horror when I came across Trump fervently addressing a rally about "woke" politicians and media and I found myself nodding in quiet agreement.

It's not drawing too long a bow to draw some comparisons with the Washington insurrection and the Wellington protests. Unfortunately the latter, albeit well-intentioned for some, deteriorated into a riotous rabble. Thankfully, unlike Washington, no lives were lost. But it was ugly.

Which begs another comparison. Is it fair to label Winston Trump-like? A shameless opportunist? The master of finding a political itch to scratch? A charlatan, as he walked amongst his people on the front lawn of Parliament?

But just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water and completely dismiss NZ First, Winston's loyal henchman Matua Shane Jones plays a blinder. The self-titled Prince of the Provinces last week wrote an excellent opinion piece in the Herald. And it had Winston's paws all over it.

Jones, in taking the Government to task over Three Waters, wrote "the public does not recall giving the Labour Party permission to impose its Treaty of Waitangi co-governance master plan".

He went on to say "Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta has a superior agenda in mind … providing it goes through her Treaty purification plant … and then hand over 50 per cent control to Iwi – a radical move from contaminated water to toxic politics. It is high time to call time on how the Treaty of Waitangi is being dragged into policy areas where it is of dubious value, alienates people, and eats away the goodwill of past decades".

The Prince of the Provinces, and by osmosis Winston, articulate exactly what many of us are thinking, but are afraid to say for fear of the woke cancel culture that prevails (cue the hate comments from the left).

What chance we'll see the pair of them parading around the provinces in 2023 with their MAGA caps? Make Aotearoa Great Again. And for what it's worth, they've got a fair point.