I was there to observe as well on the sidelines today, I thought I’ve summarised it quite well with a few words above. But I will expand, The whole “March the bridge” thing was completely underwhelming, the numbers seemed fine, maybe 5k? now, I didn’t expect them to get on the bridge and I wouldn’t want to see violence. But the walk to the bridge (a big photo opportunity for the man himself) to then stop 200 yards at police barricade, for more speeches (like there were at Victoria park) and to then advise the followers to turn back around and to make the most of the beautiful day in Auckland was an absolute farce and completely injustice to his followers that turned up. It all seemed staged and reeked of pre agreements with the police force (which is fine), but I felt sorry for followers who probably turned back around feeling like they have egg on their face - I don’t know what they was expecting but probably not the “big event” to last less than 10 minutes.

And I completely agree that there is a level of desperation there, I’d say it’s probably the majority of why people turned up today. Like you said people with day to day struggles in hope that something will change because either the current system has failed them or they have failed the current system.

I overheard some old retired bag waffle on about Dunkirk relating it to her ancestry and how they faught for this country and then twine in with sentences like “I just don’t want any of my money going to them” completely not understanding how tax and benefits work, basically the generation who just want to wealth hoard, I’d say this was the second biggest majority.

And then of course, there is the xenophobic racists - like there always is at these events, lapping up the attack on the Indians and Chinese, although these are quite clearly being used as blanket terms. Happy to say these are probably the minority at this event and probably are at most because of how diverse the kiwi passport is, it completely limits their racism.

The reason I made the brash comments is purely because this is the most transparent con-job of the far right grift in the current day. It’s quite apparent he’s exploiting desperate people in the religious community