Summarised by Centrist
In an interview with The Platform’s Leah Panapa, Acting Prime Minister and ACT leader David Seymour expressed astonishment at the attempt on former President Donald Trump’s life.
“It’s incredibly lucky it wasn’t worse. The assassination of a leading candidate in the world’s most powerful democracy would have profound consequences,” he observed.
Leah Panapa voiced her concerns about the extreme rhetoric in New Zealand politics, particularly from Te Pati Maori and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, who has used terms like “genocide” and “extermination.”
Panapa questioned whether such language could incite radical actions similar to what happened with Trump.
Seymour said that one of the core issues today is the departure from the value of universal humanity: “People have gone away from the critical value that each person has intrinsic worth. Identity politics undermines this by assigning value based on group membership.”
He also criticised the shift away from objective reality, saying, “There’s an objective world we can study, but identity politics pushes the idea that opinions are valid because of who holds them, not because of their factual basis. This undermines rational discourse.”
Seymour further pointed out that, historically, the liberal tradition has emphasised both universal human rights and objective reality, but these values are being eroded by identity politics.
