Would Jacinda Ardern Beat Donald Trump in an Election?
New leaders are emerging in a different style. Are the voters around the world ready for them?
She smiles most of the time, apparently calm, content, attentive. Happy, one would say. She’s talkative and easy-going, likable. But at the same time, she’s capable of banning all military-style semi-automatic guns and assault rifles one month after a terrorist attack. Suggesting a four-day week would be a good way to stimulate the economy after the covid-19 crisis.
This is Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s PM since 2017, which has become one of the rising stars in the international leadership and political arena. Just turning forty and very much on a 21st Century mindset, she represents a new style of down-to-earth politicians. Extremely intelligent, determined, and with a strength carefully built on empathy and vulnerability.
Her success, in her own country and abroad, has been founded on three main dimensions.
The first one is her, herself, her personality, style, ways, and fashions. It’s not easy to find a PM who is ready to pick up an TV star at the airport, let him grab her phone, and bring him home for an interview. She did that with Stephen Colbert, not even getting nervous about his always annoying and egotistic behavior. She advocates for empathy and compassions; we teach them to our children, but somehow forget to keep them in political life, she argues.
Second, her leadership style, actions, and results in crisis management. She states, “The true measure of leadership is the ability to confront the anxiety of the people of their time,” she said in the Parliament in 2017. She has been “lucky” enough to successfully manage dramatic events like Christchurch mosque shootings (March 2019), White Island volcano eruption (December 2019), and covid-19 outbreak. These gave her the possibility to emerge as an outstanding leader from a global perspective, in a moment when we’re craving for any kind of thoughtful and sensible leadership. The world is really scarce on that, unfortunately.
And third, last but not least, her progressive dimension, as the leader of the Labour Party. At the age of fourteen, she was already working on a fish-and-chips shop, but she later got a degree in politics and public relations. At 25, when she was living with three gay friends, she decided to leave her church because she considered it to be homophobic. In 2018, she was the first PM of her country to take part in the Auckland Pride Parade. Three months after giving birth to her first child, in June 2018, she was in New York, accompanied by her partner and daughter, for the United National General Assembly. “I’m a breastfeeding mother, so I need to keep my daughter alive”, she said.
In April 2020, she announced that she and all the government members would take a 20% pay cut for six months out of solidarity with all workers suffering from covid crisis.
All in all, she has 60% of positive ratings in the country.
The question is: would she be able to practice the same leadership in a bigger and more complex country? Kiwis describe themselves as ‘friendly but reserved’ and ‘open but respectful’. But we are talking about a country of around five million inhabitants, a similar population size to Finland, Ireland or Singapore.
Could the “Jacinda Model” work in the UK or the USA? The November election is approaching, and even persona is running for President. Isn’t it crazy that Kanye West announced it on twitter? Would Ardern have a chance to put a majority of Americans on her side?
Think about it: Jacinda or Donald? Who would you give your vote? It’s inevitable to compare to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who just turned thirty becoming the youngest woman ever to serve in the United States Congress. A lot has been said about AOC, even with documentaries or viral speeches. Still, this new style of leadership that we can see in New Zealand, closer to people and social media at the same time, might be a sort of example for others.
When will the USA be ready for a female president? The country is dealing with a social media hyper-active president, but is it ready to finally turn into the 21st century? It seems that figures like Trump, Bolsonaro, Orban, or Putin represent the past, but: would Arden, Ocasio-Cortez, or Trudeau be the future? Or, on the contrary, our presidents will be K-Pop stars and the Kardashians?
