Reality always has last word

If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously. Just knock the hell – I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees.’’ – Donald Trump, February 1, 2016 ‘‘I’d like to punch him in the face.’’ – Donald Trump, February 22, 2016

‘‘You know, part of the problem... is nobody wants to hurt each other any more, right?’’ – Donald Trump, March 11, 2016

‘‘Any guy that can do a body slam... He’s my guy.’’ – Donald Trump, October 18, 2018, praising Republican representative Greg Gianforte, who was convicted of assaulting a reporter

‘‘We have to come together and send one very clear, strong, unmistakable message that threats or acts of political violence of any kind have no place in the United States of America.’’ – Donald Trump, October 24, 2018

Lord, this guy...

He just can’t help himself, can he? Seems like every time he opens his mouth, out falls the bovine excreta, great lumps of hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance.

He was at it again last Wednesday. The mind reeled as Trump, arguably America’s most enthusiastic proponent of political violence, made a statement deploring political violence. This, as investigators sought the person who sent explosive devices to CNN as well as to Barack and Michelle Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Maxine Waters, Eric Holder and other prominent critics of Trump’s chaos presidency.

No, Trump isn’t the first president to say something at sharp variance with what he said before. Obama once claimed he never said: ‘‘If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.’’ George W Bush once claimed his administration never advocated ‘‘stay the course’’ in Iraq.

But this guy, Lord, this guy, with him, it’s not a sometime thing. Rather, it is every day, all the time, as if in his world, words have no fixed meaning and people, no memory.

So that what he said with seeming sincerity on Tuesday can be demolished by what he says with seeming sincerity on Wednesday and he doesn’t care – indeed, he marvels that anyone does – because, hey, Tuesday’s gone. And Thursday’s coming.

This ongoing insult of reality, this daily denigration of truth, is epidemic among Trump’s people. Unable to face what is, they live in a kingdom of lies, seek sanctuary down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. Indeed, Trump cultists – Lou Dobbs, James Woods, Rush Limbaugh, Candace Owens and more – suggested the bombs were part of a Democratic plot to sway the coming election.

Meantime, this guy, this morally deformed 72-year-old brat, had a theory of his own. After bombs were sent to people he has spent years insulting – ‘‘low IQ’’, ‘‘crooked’’, ‘‘ignorant’’ – and to a network he has spent years condemning – ‘‘enemies of the people’’ – Trump tweeted that the ‘‘anger’’ in our society is a result of media’s ‘‘false and inaccurate reporting’’.

So in other words, if reporters would just stop challenging him, stop questioning him, stop behaving as if words have meaning and people, memories, all will be well. He probably even believes that.

But the issue here is not news media. Nor is it civility or Republicans being yelled at in restaurants.

No, the issue is reality and the fact that it becomes no less real because you don’t acknowledge it.

That’s what the Trump cult has never figured out. Reality will always have the last word.

And you may run from it, but you can never escape.

Not even down a rabbit hole, not even in a kingdom of lies.

We have so many leisure options today, all tailored to our individual desires.

There were two interesting pieces of commentary on MPS and their backgrounds last week. The first, by my old editor Rob Mitchell, detailed the increasing prevalence of ‘‘career’’ MPS without substantive experience outside politics. The other, by Matthew Hooton, looked at the same phenomenon in the context of the hollowing out of our political parties.

That our main political parties continue to be hollowed out is not really in question. The days when joining a party was a normal thing are long gone. Membership numbers are not public information, but it is accepted by all that they are a fraction of what they were in decades gone by.

It is common knowledge that, in membership, National is the largest party in New Zealand. In 2018, however, that status can be achieved with just 20,000 or so members. And yet in 2002, when National’s electoral report receded to its lowest ebb, the party won more than 425,000 votes.

Labour is the second largest party. It probably has about half as many individual members as National does. When its vote collapsed in 2014, however, it won close to 605,000 votes.

So parties have hundreds of thousands of stalwart supporters who, while never dreaming of voting for anybody else, do not have any interest in becoming actual members.

In 2018, there are several categories of political party members. In the first place, there are elderly and middle-aged people who first became involved with the party when doing such things was an ordinary aspect of New Zealand life. Then there are true believers who believe only the party can redeem the world. Lastly, there are strivers who want to be elected to Parliament.

That’s a simplification, of course. People are complicated and so are organisations. I have friends in their 20s and 30s who are party members for all the right reasons.

But by definition, you don’t join a political party unless you are interested in politics. And politics is about power and the people most interested in power are often those who covet it for themselves. So it’s no surprise that the ambitious are among those most attracted to party membership.

As the older group gets older, they are not generally being replaced. With every passing year, therefore, the membership becomes smaller, more ideological and more grasping. They become less and less like the rest of the country.

Given that our system of electing members of Parliament now revolves around political parties, this is not ideal. So what is to be done? To ask that question is to assume something can be done. It’s not clear that this is the case.

Declining membership and involvement in political parties mirrors the decline also being experienced by churches, trade unions and service and sports clubs.

Here are three organisations I have been involved with in my life: the National Party, the Catholic Church and Rotary. All have ageing memberships. Each struggles to attract new blood.

Most voluntary associations will tell you the same thing. It is very hard to get people engaged in any membership-based activity unless there is the promise of immediate financial reward or no more than a trivial amount of effort and bother is required. Civil society is withering on the vine.

These trends have been in place for a long time. In the 1990s, the Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam wrote an essay and then a book called Bowling Alone. It looked at the decline of social organisations in the United States and took its name from the fact that, while participating in bowling had increased, participation in organised bowling leagues had decreased.

Putnam examined a number of candidates as the cause of declining social capital and settled on technology as the primary culprit. We have so many leisure options today, all tailored to our individual desires. The hard work and patience that come with belonging to a community group struggle to compete.

Whatever the cause, it is unlikely that New Zealand’s political parties will be the ones to reverse it. Perhaps the best that can be managed is mitigation of the trend. And it would help if MPS had more appreciation for the members supporting them.

For example, there used to be an MP who, according to rumour, discouraged locals from joining the party.

The seat was a safe one and so the MP did not need to rely on a large number of volunteers to ensure re-election.

You can see why members, in such circumstances, would be a bit of a drag. There’s the hassle of having to deal with them, increased fundraising obligations imposed by party HQ and an increased risk of being challenged for selection. Who needs that?

Well, the country does. So if you naturally gravitate towards one or the other, why not become a member? Think about it, even if you’re not intensely partisan.

Actually, scratch that. Think about it especially if you’re not intensely partisan.