Swarbrick & the currents of Green unreason

"The weakness [interviewer Jack] Tame homed in on was Swarbrick’s political inflexibility – a flaw which has only grown as her time in Parliament has lengthened. ...
    "While, on paper, the Greens’ determination to arm their politics with the weaponry of reason and science [makes] it a perfect fit for the serious, almost scholarly, Swarbrick, there were risks [with her choosing to join them]. The currents of unreason that were flowing with ever-increasing force beneath the surface of Green Party politics were bound to end up battering her core intellectual and political principles. ...
    "Her six years in Parliament appear to have diminished her faith in democracy as the most effective political system. .it appears to have hardened her and made her brittle. ... 

    "Swarbrick’s declining faith in representative democracy is reflected in her conviction that “the people” possess a power that overmatches the tawdry compromises of professional politicians. In her pitch to Green members Swarbrick hints that this power may be sufficient to bring the whole rotten, planet-destroying system crashing down. That, with the masses at their back, the Greens can build a new and better Aotearoa.
    "How many times has revolutionary zealotry offered this millenarian mirage to an angry and despairing world? How many times has it all gone horribly wrong? And how sad is it that a politician as talented as Chloe Swarbrick now finds herself wandering this arid trail?"

~ Chris Trotter, from his post 'Iron in Her Soul'