{"id":873,"date":"2025-05-31T07:00:39","date_gmt":"2025-05-30T19:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/exposures.co.nz\/?p=873"},"modified":"2025-06-03T08:00:17","modified_gmt":"2025-06-02T20:00:17","slug":"empathy-is-a-kind-of-strength-jacinda-ardern-on-kind-leadership-public-rage-and-life-in-trumps-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exposures.co.nz\/?p=873","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Empathy is a kind of strength\u2019: Jacinda Ardern on kind leadership, public rage and life in Trump\u2019s America – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source<\/a><\/p>\n

Young, progressive and relatable, the former prime minister of New Zealand tried to do politics differently. But six years into power, she dramatically resigned. In an exclusive interview with the Guardian\u2019s editor-in-chief, she explains why.<\/p>\n

\"\"In 2022, a few months before she quit as prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern\u00a0was standing at the sink in the toilets in Auckland airport, washing her hands, when a woman came up to her and leaned in. She was so close that Ardern could feel the heat from her skin. \u201cI just wanted to say thank you,\u201d the woman said. \u201cThanks for ruining the country.\u201d She turned and left, leaving Ardern \u201cstanding there as if I were a high-schooler who\u2019d just been razed\u201d.<\/p>\n

The incident was deeply shocking. Ardern had been re-elected in a historic landslide two years before. She enjoyed conversation and debate; she liked being the kind of leader who wasn\u2019t sealed off from the rest of the population. But this, says Ardern, \u201cfelt like something new. It was the tenor of the woman\u2019s voice, the way she\u2019d stood so close, the way her seething, nonspecific rage felt not only unpredictable but incongruous to the situation \u2026 What was happening?\u201d<\/p>\n

The incident came at a pivotal moment: Ardern sensed that the tide was turning against her and she was grappling with whether to go. \u201cSomething had been loosened worldwide,\u201d she says, with rage everywhere, public servants being followed and attacked, as if they were \u201csomehow distinct from being human\u201d. We all recognise this rage, but Ardern was at the centre of it, representing progressive politics, tough Covid measures, empathy, emotion, anti-racism, femaleness; a symbol of a different time, more rational, kinder, when rules still meant something. When there were\u00a0many female leaders\u00a0\u2013 Angela Merkel, Theresa May, Sanna Marin, Mia Mottley, Mette Frederiksen, Tsai Ing-wen.<\/p>\n

For all these reasons, Ardern is now missed by progressives, at home and abroad. At her height she had blazed a global trail, modelling a different way of doing politics \u2013\u00a0wearing a headscarf\u00a0and embracing weeping bereaved families after the\u00a0Christchurch mosque massacre, then\u00a0reforming gun laws in 10 days; taking\u00a0decisive action on Covid\u00a0that meant New Zealanders were able to party again while the rest of the world could barely go out; leaving celebrities from\u00a0Elton John\u00a0to\u00a0Stephen Colbert\u00a0starry-eyed with her poise and wit and humanity. It was\u00a0Jacinda-mania, and everybody wanted a prime minister like her: young (elected at just 37) and a woman, she offered a different vision of national identity for New Zealand \u2013 straightforward, compassionate, diverse, globally desirable \u2013 and a different way to lead a country \u2013 youthful, human, decent. She had a hunky feminist boyfriend and was pregnant when she became PM; and she was going \u201cto bring kindness back\u201d.<\/p>\n

And then, out of the blue, after six years in office, in January 2023, she dramatically\u00a0announced her resignation. How could she have done this to us, her fans wailed, at a time when the world is falling apart before our eyes?<\/p>\n

\"\u2018Burnout

\u2018Burnout is very different from making a judgment in yourself as to whether or not you\u2019re operating at the level you need to be.\u2019 Ardern announcing her resignation in January 2023. Photograph: Kerry Marshall\/Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

We meet to discuss her memoir, A Different Kind of Power, for the first major interview she has given since she resigned. Ardern chooses the cafe, a cavernous bare-boards-and-metal type of place, in a small mall in Cambridge, Massachusetts \u2013 she is leading a course in empathetic leadership at Harvard. I arrive very early, to get my equipment ready, but Ardern is already there, drinking a huge black tea and primed with her own recording device. \u201cGirly swot,\u201d I joke, using a line she has used about herself. \u201cAh well,\u201d she laughs, \u201cwhy hide who you are?\u201d<\/p>\n

She has a lovely open face and that famous toothy smile, both emphasised by red lipstick, ballerina-style scraped-back hair and big gold hoops. She is wearing a padded khaki jacket and black clumpy boots.<\/p>\n

Ardern and Trump always felt like yin and yang; both took power in 2017, and gave their first speeches at the UN eight days apart, but they take directly opposite political and cultural positions on just about everything. So how does it feel to be the anti-Trump living in Trump\u2019s America?<\/p>\n

\u201cI consider myself an observer, observing someone else\u2019s politics,\u201d she says. She\u2019s enjoying the anonymity of being in the US (quite a contrast to New Zealand). \u201cBut increasingly what happens in one place affects other places. And it\u2019s not just political culture, it\u2019s also our economies, our security arrangements.\u201d<\/p>\n

She chooses her words carefully: once a politician, always a politician. \u201cPolitical leaders in those moments of deep economic insecurity have two options. One is to acknowledge the environment that they\u2019re in. We\u2019re in a globalised world. We\u2019re in an interconnected world. And we\u2019re in a world of technological disruption. We need a policy prescription that acknowledges all of that. And those are often hard solutions. Hard, difficult to communicate, difficult to implement. But that\u2019s what you\u2019ve got to do. Or \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

She pauses. \u201cYou choose blame. Blame the other, blame the migrant, blame other countries, blame multilateral institutions, blame. But it does not fundamentally solve it. In fact, all that happens at the end is you have an othered group, and people who feel dissatisfied and angry and more entrenched.\u201d<\/p>\n

Would she call Trump\u2019s America fascism yet?<\/p>\n

There is a very long pause \u2013 when I listen back to the tape I time it to 11 seconds. \u201cI\u2019m just trying to think about where that takes us,\u201d says Ardern, eventually. \u201cI think probably in my mind, certainly what we\u2019re seeing isn\u2019t anything I\u2019ve ever experienced in my lifetime.\u201d<\/p>\n

She is gently funny about Trump the man, without ever going too far, saying he is \u201ctaller than I expected, his tan more pronounced\u201d. Vladimir Putin is \u201cquiet, often alone and almost expressionless\u201d. She talks about former Australian prime minister Scott Morrison\u2019s \u201cself-satisfied indifference\u201d and simply rolls her eyes when I mention Boris Johnson. The only really mean comment I can find in the book is about the very rightwing New Zealand politician\u00a0David Seymour, and it\u2019s laugh-out-loud funny: she was overheard on camera calling him \u201can arrogant prick\u201d, and is relieved when her aide tells her about it. She thought she\u2019d called him a \u201cfucking prick\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Ardern:

Ardern: \u2018I would not describe myself as cool.\u2019 Stylist: Marisa Ellison. Stylist\u2019s assistant: Lennon Goldsmith. Hair: Antonio Velotta using L\u2019Or\u00e9al Pro Hair products and Dyson Supersonic. Makeup: Michelle Reda using Shiseido. Top and jeans, Another Tomorrow. Earrings and cuff, Patricia Von Musulin. Photograph: Benedict Evans\/The Guardian<\/p><\/div>\n

ame Jacinda Kate Laurell Ardern was born in 1980 in the North Island of New Zealand, and she describes herself as \u201ca very ordinary person who found themselves in a set of extraordinary circumstances\u201d. Ardern and her sister were the first in her family to go to university, and lived at home while studying, to save on costs. Her dad was a police officer; her mother a school dinner lady. She was brought up a Mormon \u2013 long skirts, no caffeine and \u201cdoor-knocking on behalf of God\u201d. A tomboy with a \u201crelentless sense of responsibility\u201d, Ardern famously worked in a fish and chip shop called the Golden Kiwi \u2013 already an over-preparer, she got ready for her first shift by endlessly wrapping a cabbage in newspaper.<\/p>\n

Throughout her memoir, Ardern reminds us that she was always extremely sensitive and emotional, as well as a \u201cchronic overthinker\u201d. The book is dedicated to \u201cthe criers, worriers and huggers\u201d; her thesis is that these people can make great leaders, too. Her father said she was \u201cfar too thin-skinned\u201d to be an MP. \u201cSensitivity was my weakness, my tragic flaw, the thing that might just stop me sticking with the work that I loved,\u201d she writes.<\/p>\n

Still, in retrospect, some kind of political career looked inevitable. She witnessed unfairness as a child and couldn\u2019t bear it, particularly when it concerned her town\u2019s M\u0101ori community. She was a champion debater at school, studied politics and communications at university, was a researcher for leaders of the NZ Labour party, and even worked in London as a policy adviser at a unit called the Better Regulation Executive (\u201ca job title that would end conversation with most polite company\u201d). She became an MP at 28.<\/p>\n

She always had progressive politics but believes being surrounded by people with different points of view helped her. \u201cI have a very diverse family, lots of diverse views, and we haven\u2019t lost any relationships, we\u2019ve always talked,\u201d she says. There\u2019s a bit in the book when a woman in her home town says: \u201cJacinda, I wanted to tell you that there are a lot of people in Morrinsville who are praying for you \u2026 They\u2019re not\u00a0voting<\/em>\u00a0for you, but they\u00a0are<\/em>\u00a0praying for you.\u201d Even her loving grandma admitted that she probably wouldn\u2019t vote for her.<\/p>\n

By the time she entered politics, she had stopped being a Mormon; she says the gulf between her religion and her values (especially around LGBTQ+ rights) became too wide. But she won\u2019t speak badly of the church, and believes it taught her a lot about \u201cservice and charity\u201d. And, of course, having a door slammed in your face is excellent preparation for politics.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it was this upbringing that drove Ardern\u2019s self-effacement \u2013 I tell her this is the most modest political memoir I\u2019ve read, and her response is: \u201cHave you read any other New Zealand political memoirs? Because I would not say that\u2019s a trait particular to me.\u201d I say I think she is pretty cool for a politician (interesting ear piercings, likes drum\u2019n\u2019bass, has been seen in Portishead T-shirts). \u201cI would not describe myself as cool,\u201d she says, shaking her head.<\/p>\n

For about a decade, Ardern worked diligently as an MP, learning the ropes in politics. In the book she tells an anecdote about the time she asked a fellow MP, known as a bruiser, how to toughen up. He begs her not to. \u201cYou feel things because you have empathy, because you care,\u201d he told her. \u201cThe moment you change is the moment you\u2019ll stop being good at your job.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2017, she was elected deputy Labour leader. A general election was called and the party was tanking; the poll numbers were so bad that the party leader resigned, and Ardern was unexpectedly tasked with running for prime minister, even though all the billboard posters still had her as the deputy. Leadership was thrust on her. She had 72 hours to formulate a new campaign plan \u2013 at the time, she reckoned \u2018\u201cwinning wasn\u2019t possible, not when we were seven weeks out from the election and polling at 23%\u201d. But she thought she could at least \u201csave the furniture\u201d. In the end there was no clear majority and, after weeks of coalition negotiations, the centre right New Zealand First party chose to go with Labour. She was to become the country\u2019s third female leader.<\/p>\n

There was just one thing: in the middle of all this, and days before she became PM, she had found out she was pregnant.<\/p>\n

“Guilt is part of the package. You can\u2019t get rid of it \u2013 you just try and suppress it”<\/h4>\n

Ardern and her partner,\u00a0Clarke Gayford, had been struggling to conceive and had consulted a fertility specialist; next thing she knew, she was \u201cpregnant, unwed and new to the job\u201d. Gayford presents a popular travel and fishing TV show called Fish of the Day, which has been running for more than a decade, and they met in 2012 at an awards ceremony. A year later he emailed to ask if he could help with her campaign (that old trick). Ardern says Gayford didn\u2019t even own a suit when they met, although he \u201crelished\u201d being part of the group of international leaders\u2019 spouses. He famously\u00a0held their three-month-old daughter, Neve, in between feeds when Ardern made her debut speech at the UN. When she decided to quit politics, Clarke tried to get her to stay, suggesting she delegate more. \u201cI just don\u2019t want them to feel like they\u2019ve won,\u201d he said. (Gayford makes me think of Margaret Atwood\u2019s husband; he was such a supportive spouse that people used to go round in T-shirts saying \u201cEvery woman writer should be married to Graeme Gibson\u201d. Every woman politician should be married to Clarke Gayford.) As Ardern puts it with a smile: \u201cModel of a modern man. Yeah, feminist hero, exactly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\u2018I

\u2018I think the rehumanisation of people in public life is really important.\u2019 Ardern with Gayford and their daughter, Neve, while in New York for a United Nations assembly, 2018. Photograph: Don Emmert\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

Ardern was only the second female leader to give birth in office, after Pakistan\u2019s Benazir Bhutto. The birth was difficult \u2013 she couldn\u2019t stand upright properly for weeks afterwards. She constantly felt she should be somewhere else. \u201cIt felt like living with chronic discomfort \u2013 half guilt, half disappointment \u2013 all the time.\u201d She was doing an important job. Even as PM, there\u2019s still guilt about whatever you\u2019re not doing? \u201cIf any role was going to give you a bit of a pass on guilt, it might have been leading a country,\u201d she laughs. But she still felt bad. \u201cSo I just think that it\u2019s part of the package. And you can\u2019t get rid of it. You can instead just try and make the best decision you can in that moment and try and suppress the guilt. That\u2019s all you can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why did she leave? \u201cI never wanted to use the line, \u2018I\u2019m leaving to spend time with my family\u2019,\u201d she says. \u201cI was very careful not to express anything like that, because I never wanted to convey that you couldn\u2019t have a family or that being in politics meant that you were making a decision to place them on a lower bar, or vice versa.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many assume it was because of burnout \u2013 on the day Ardern quit, she said she didn\u2019t have \u201cenough gas in the tank\u201d to carry on. But burnout is not to blame, she says today. \u201cBurnout is very different from making a judgment in yourself as to whether or not you\u2019re operating at the level you need to be.\u201d Things were starting to get to her more than usual; and, \u201cof course I was tired, but wasn\u2019t everyone in their 40s?\u201d.<\/p>\n

No wonder she was tired: Ardern\u2019s time in power may have been short, but it was particularly tumultuous, punctuated by earthquakes, a terror attack and, of course, a global pandemic. Neve was born in June 2018. Nine months later, a far-right Australian man<\/a>\u00a0killed 51 worshippers at a mosque in Christchurch, livestreaming the attack on Facebook. Ardern\u2019s response was instinctive and moving, most notably in the simple statement about the Muslim victims: \u201cThey are us.\u201d In a speech that reverberated around the world, she said: \u201cMany of those who will have been directly affected by this shooting may be migrants to New Zealand, they may even be refugees here. They have chosen to make New Zealand their home, and it is their home.\u201d She held the families of the dead and cried with them.<\/p>\n

\"Ardern

Ardern offers comfort to a woman following the terror attack in Christchurch, 2019. When Trump asked what America could do, Ardern replied: \u2018You can show sympathy and love for all Muslim communities.\u2019 Photograph: Lynn Grieveson\/Newsroom\/Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

In the book, she describes how Trump called her after the massacre, and it\u2019s subtly revealing about both of them. \u201cWe discussed what might happen to the terrorist,\u201d she writes. \u201cI used that word, \u2018terrorist\u2019, specifically and President Trump asked if we were calling the gunman that.\u201d She said to him: \u201cYes, this was a white man from Australia who deliberately targeted our Muslim community. We are calling him that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump did not respond, but asked if there was anything America could do. \u201cYou can show sympathy and love for all Muslim communities,\u201d she told him. It was the reverse of the politics of division: she says that the terrorist \u201cchose us because he knew that New Zealand openly welcomed people of all faiths. He wanted to destroy that.\u201d<\/p>\n

What was behind her response, and why does she think so many found it so affecting? She says: \u201cYou\u2019re actually leading a collective. They [the public] were deciding how they were responding and I just happened to be in the front of that with them. That\u2019s how it felt to me.\u201d So she believes she was channelling New Zealanders in those moments? \u201cI think it was a reflection of how New Zealanders felt. These things are part of our identity. Perhaps it\u2019s our size, but you can almost feel it. You can feel a response that literally feels like a whole country.\u201d<\/p>\n

When she says she can feel it, what\u2019s it like? \u201cIt sounds unusual, but I\u2019ve always felt like I had a general sense of where New Zealand is at on something. I relied on it a lot while I was in office. You feel an energy.\u201d It sounds almost physical. \u201cIt\u2019s a mood thing. A vibe. Sounds a bit woo-woo. I guess politicians use polls a lot to try and understand that. I wouldn\u2019t let staff give me polls.\u201d<\/p>\n

She moved quickly after the attack, announcing the banning of military-style weapons within days; two months later she co-chaired a summit with Emmanuel Macron for world leaders and tech CEOs to commit to \u201celiminating terrorist and violent extremist content online\u201d. There are now more than 130 governments and tech firms signed up to the \u201cChristchurch Call to Action\u201d.<\/p>\n

Christchurch was a massive test. As 2020 came around, she was hoping for a bit of calm. It was not to be.<\/p>\n

Ardern\u2019s response to the pandemic stood out worldwide. She was careful, rational, guided by data modelling, scientific experts and public health advisers \u2013 the opposite, you could say, of the approach taken by Johnson and Trump. This was a tiny, remote island nation with few intensive-care beds. She closed the border on 19 March 2020 to all non-citizens; there was strict lockdown and contact tracing; and, for a long time, she was personally informed of every single Covid death in the country. And, for a long time, there were very few. While people across the world were banned from seeing their loved ones, many New Zealanders were living a life close to normal. At the end of 2020, while English schools were still closed and hundreds of thousands had died in the US alone, Ardern and Gayford were at a festival watching a band called Shapeshifter (for which, as it happens, they had discussed a shared affinity on their first date).<\/p>\n

\"Ardern:

Ardern: \u2018I was probably in power in spite of the power bit.\u2019 Top, by Fforme. Earrings and necklace, by Patricia Von Musulin. Top image: Coat and trousers, by Fforme. Earrings and ring, as before. Photograph: Benedict Evans\/The Guardian<\/p><\/div>\n

But then came the Delta variant, which was much more infectious. Ardern believed that even with strict rules around mask wearing and proof of vaccination, it would be impossible to contain an outbreak. As the lockdown went into its seventh week, she began to see that \u201cNew Zealand\u2019s sense of togetherness was starting to fracture\u201d.<\/p>\n

Worse was to come. In February 2022, 3,000 anti-vaccine protesters pitched tents and occupied the grounds of Parliament House in Wellington. As she writes of the encampment: \u201cI saw my own image, with a Hitler moustache, monocle and \u2018Dictator of the Year\u2019 emblazoned above my face. I saw the gallows, complete with a noose, which people said had been erected for me. I saw the American flags, the Trump flags, the swastikas.\u201d She could hear the protesters shouting, \u201cYou stand on the bones of death\u201d through the government doors. And, \u201cWe\u2019re coming for you next.\u201d<\/p>\n

Did these people hound her out? \u201cAbsolutely not,\u201d she says. \u201cI left a year after some of those most difficult patches.\u201d But it must have been horrific. She writes that she had always tried to be \u201chuman first, and a leader second. I understood that, to the crowd occupying parliament, I was neither.\u201d<\/p>\n

Does she now think she went too hard with restrictions and vaccination mandates? She says that New Zealand \u201ccame out of Covid with one of the highest vaccination rates in the world and fewer days in lockdown than nations like the UK, and during this time our country\u2019s life expectancy actually\u00a0increased<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n

She gets little credit for this. I guess it\u2019s hard to get credit for things that didn\u2019t happen; you can\u2019t really prove a negative, prove how many people didn\u2019t die. Oh you can, she says, firmly. \u201cTwenty thousand. Four times my old town. It\u2019s a lot of people.\u201d There\u2019s a long pause. \u201cHow do you feel remorse about that?\u201d<\/p>\n

It sounds as if she feels she has been unfairly attacked over her approach to Covid. At this suggestion, Ardern goes very still and quiet, and I suddenly realise she has tears in her eyes. \u201cI find Covid really hard,\u201d she says, swallowing her words. \u201cI had a conversation up north, after I\u2019d left office. I was wandering around some markets and I could feel this young woman looking at me, so when she caught my eye I said hello, and we struck up a conversation, and it turned out that she was a teacher who\u2019d had an adverse reaction to the vaccine. And because she didn\u2019t get the second dose, she had stopped working in teaching.\u201d<\/p>\n

The New Zealand vaccine mandate meant that people in some professions were required to have it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talked about the fact that we, of course, had an exemption regime, but for some reason it hadn\u2019t worked out for her. It was the kind of conversation that I just wish I could have with everyone: when everything isn\u2019t distilled down into black and white. But the world leaves so little space for that now. And I feel very sad about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"View

View image in fullscreen \u2018It\u2019s distressing when you\u2019re misunderstood, or feel misunderstood.\u2019 Ardern giving an update on coronavirus measures, 2020. Photograph: Hagen Hopkins\/Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

She\u2019s fighting back tears again. Her tone is so sad. Why does she think it\u2019s still so hard? \u201cPeople only see the decisions you made, not the choices you had. The first part of Covid, people saw all the choices and decisions. And the second half, it just got hard. It got hard. Vaccines bring an extra layer that\u2019s really difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

I apologise for taking her back to a dark time. \u201cOne of the things that still stands out in my mind \u2013 I can\u2019t remember if it was a meme or a genuine cartoon \u2013 but it was an image of Winnie-the-Pooh and Christopher Robin,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was at the tail end of Covid, and Christopher says, \u2018How will we know if we succeeded?\u2019 And Winnie says, \u2018Because they\u2019ll say we did too much.\u2019 And it captured this idea that there probably isn\u2019t a sweet spot. Maybe there were only two options in the end. Maybe it was: you\u2019ll be attacked for doing too little or you\u2019ll be attacked for doing too much. And I know what I would choose.\u201d<\/p>\n

She faced extreme reactions from fellow New Zealanders. \u201cThere\u2019d be some people who would spontaneously cry because they absolutely believe that you saved their lives,\u201d says Ardern. \u201cAnd then there\u2019s someone else on the other end of the spectrum who mirrors that level of emotion, who felt that somehow you ended theirs.\u201d<\/p>\n

“I\u2019d read a comment and think, holy heck, if half of that was true, I\u2019d dislike me, too”<\/h4>\n

Hardly anyone talks about Covid any more, but it changed our economies, children\u2019s relationships with school, adults\u2019 relationships with work, citizens\u2019 relationship with the state.<\/p>\n

Ardern nods. \u201cIt disrupted our own sense of security around what we could fundamentally expect.\u00a0<\/strong>Covid disrupted the baseline.\u201d<\/p>\n

And maybe she was a fall guy for that. \u201cIt\u2019s distressing when you\u2019re misunderstood, or feel misunderstood,\u201d she says. \u201cSometimes I\u2019d read a comment and I\u2019d think, holy heck, if half of that was true, I\u2019d dislike me, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another former PM of New Zealand, Helen Clark, said Ardern had faced\u00a0\u201ca level of hatred and venom that I believe is unprecedented in this country\u201d.<\/p>\n

She was trivialised, called vapid, vacant, even \u201cpretty bloody stupid\u201d. She writes about how women are held to \u201csome unspoken, impossible standard\u201d; how she is careful not to be seen as \u201chumourless and too sensitive\u201d in her response to a cartoon portraying her as a boxing-ring girl in a bikini with black stiletto boots.<\/p>\n

Does she think women face particular vitriol? \u201cThere\u2019s a magnified impact on women in public life,\u201d she agrees. \u201cAnd also on those of different ethnic backgrounds and also our LGBTQ+ communities. And I say public life, because I don\u2019t think it\u2019s just politicians; it\u2019s journalists, academics.\u201d<\/p>\n

As she left parliament, Ardern said that she hoped her leaving would \u201ctake the heat out of politics\u201d; that it \u201cmight make our politics feel calmer, less polarised\u201d. That didn\u2019t work, did it?<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t take the heat out,\u201d she admits; she knows it\u2019s obvious. \u201cWhat felt more important to me were the things that we\u2019d done, rather than me staying on to do more of them.\u201d When I ask for examples, she says she succeeded in \u201cremoving the politics from climate change\u201d with the Zero Carbon Act, and points to \u201cchild poverty measures, that we\u2019ve also got consensus on. Both of those have lasted. Abortion law reform has lasted.\u201d<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a wistfulness when she talks about these achievements, and many New Zealand progressives were frustrated with the amount of change she managed to implement, especially considering the landslide she won in 2020.<\/p>\n

Their disappointment is particularly acute in light of the current government, which is the most rightwing ever elected in New Zealand and is trying to\u00a0undo years of progress on M\u0101ori rights, for example. Ardern refuses to talk about New Zealand politics now, but what\u2019s happening must appal her.<\/p>\n

The \u201cpolitics of empathy\u201d might not be in vogue, but Ardern remains committed to it. Is it a strong enough weapon against authoritarianism? Elon Musk recently said that \u201cthe fundamental weakness of western civilisation is empathy\u201d. She snorts. \u201cWhat does that even mean?\u201d<\/p>\n

Attacking empathy is all the rage with the right, I point out, especially in the US. There are popular books called Against Empathy and The Sin of Empathy. \u201cWell, in that environment, saying loudly and proudly that you believe in empathy and that you\u2019ll govern in that way is an act of strength.\u201d<\/p>\n

But public life today is so horrible, so brutal. Why would anyone go into politics? \u201cI think the rehumanisation of people in public life is really important,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

“I love politics, but that\u2019s because I love people”<\/h4>\n

After our interview, both\u00a0Anthony Albanese in Australia\u00a0and\u00a0Mark Carney in Canada\u00a0are elected in defiance of Trump\u2019s authoritarian politics; Albanese even mentioned \u201ckindness\u201d in his victory speech. With these victories looking likely, I had asked her what she thought they would show about Trump\u2019s kind of power.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think people swinging in the other direction [from America] is almost making the point. I don\u2019t think that form of leadership is what people seek.\u201d<\/p>\n

So she still believes in politics? \u201cI\u00a0love<\/em>\u00a0politics,\u201d she laughs, \u201cbut that\u2019s because I love people.\u201d<\/p>\n

She loves democracy and people more than power, she says. \u201cIn fact, I was probably in power in spite of the power bit. I would have been very happy to be a minister, a wider member of a team.\u201d It\u2019s a profound comment in a world of strongmen and autocrats.<\/p>\n

Ardern wanted to be a different kind of leader, and for six years she was. She feels an almost mystical connection to her country. Covid made it stronger. Then Covid destroyed it. And she still can\u2019t believe it. She plans to move back home soon.<\/p>\n

We have talked for a while, well over our allotted time; the teas are cold and she wants to get back to her daughter. She walks me to the appropriate junction and tells me the most scenic route to take, then strides out anonymously in the Massachusetts streets, clumpy boots grounding her. Decent, resolutely human, and only 44, Jacinda Ardern still believes modesty, kindness and compassion will win the day.<\/p>\n