Dissecting the Rhetoric of Jacinda Ardern

“There used to be a website devoted to pointing out examples of world maps that didn’t bother to include New Zealand. If we did make it, we were tucked into the lower right corner, just past Australia. We’re used to being far away and forgotten. For a brief time, Jacinda Ardern put us on the map,” New Zealand political columnist Josie Pagani writes.

“Ardern, who [has resigned], citing burnout, had promised New Zealanders a ‘transformational’ government that would build homes to address a housing crisis and reduce child poverty,” Pagani writes in a piece for The New York Times.

“But over time, many Kiwis came to feel that, despite her international image, her rhetoric was never quite matched by substance.

“On balance, she deserves credit for knowing when to throw in the towel if her heart is no longer in it. But Ardern leaves with much of her promised agenda unfulfilled. It’s been thrilling to be on the world map. But in the end, her years in power were like those maps that left New Zealand off: flawed and incomplete.”

Original article by Josie Pagani, The New York Times, January 24, 2023.