Jacinda Ardern joins programme by major U.S. think tank the Center for American Progress
Jul 18, 2024
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s new international role is leader of a project created by the think tank the Center for American Progress, known as CAP. Reactions to this apparently counter intuitive move have been varied.
The Think Tank Journal describes CAP as ‘a major Democratic Party aligned think tank in Washington DC.’
The more extreme World Socialist Web Site went further and said Ardern ‘joins pro-war US think tank.’
Politico describes the Center for American Progress as ‘the most influential think tank of the Biden era’. CAP has played a significant role in shaping policy and political discourse during President Biden’s administration.
Jacinda Ardern said the project she will head, named ‘Field’, is a 12 month programme to support and connect global political leaders who embody kindness and empathy.
She said Field will create a network of political leaders who use pragmatic idealism, speak to people with hope and optimism rather than fear or blame and want to unite rather than divide in the search for solutions to the challenges ahead.
The first cohort of leaders will meet in July and come from across Europe but this will broaden over time.
Ardern said “Field is an incredibly humbling and exciting project to be leading. It is part of my ongoing mission to re-humanise leadership and just be useful!”
Field is hosted by Global Progress Action, which in turn is an initiative of the Center for the American Progress Action Fund, the CAP fund.
CAP was launched in 2003. It was created by Bill Clinton’s White House Chief of Staff, John Podesta and others who were opposed to Bush-style Republican conservatism. It was a clearing house for progressive ideas and governance. It quickly became an influential player in the Democratic Party’s political landscape, helping to turn the tide of opinion against the Iraq War, preparing the foundations for health care reform in the lead up to the passage of Obamacare, innovating in the world of advocacy media and feeding dozens of personnel to political institutions throughout Washington DC.
Combined with its policy and advocacy arm, CAP currently has a staff of 415 and an operating budget of about US$64 million.
Podesta is on record saying CAP has ‘a very good balance sheet and finances and a reputation (among donors) that it’s a place that if you invest you get good results.’
The donors who invest expecting to ‘get good results’ include a number of anonymous donors.
Others include Microsoft, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie
Corporation, Amazon, Michael Bloomberg, Mark Zuckerberg, Apple, Google and JP Morgan. Some health providers and some entertainers notably Barbara Streisand have made contributions in recent years.
For others CAP appears somewhat sinister and Ardern’s association with it appears to contrast with her reputation for kind and empathetic leadership.
The World Socialist Web Site says the CAP has specialised in the production of propaganda for war. It says CAP opposed the war in Iraq because it thought it diverted resources from fighting in Afghanistan, it supported NATO’s war to change the regime in Libya and supported the Obama administration’s arming of Islamist rebels in Syria.
The WSWS criticises in detail CAP’s support for President Biden’s escalation of tensions with China and CAP’s advocacy for further arms for Ukraine to promote a ‘decisive military defeat (of Russia) before there can be talk of peace’ and talk about empathy and kindness, while failing to condemn the ‘Israel-US genocide in Gaza’ was ‘hypocrisy’.
The Field programme under Ardern’s leadership will begin by involving up to fifteen participants from different European countries. Johan Hassel, senior fellow and director of Global Progress Action said “creating a fellowship for leaders to support, learn and grow together can help restore faith in progressive solutions as a force for good and better combat the shadow of far right extremism.”
“The rise of authoritarianism and the growing influence of the far right in Europe shows the urgency for this program,” said Patrick Gaspard, CEO of CAP Action. “This moment demands more bold and principled leaders who are not afraid to stand firm in their values and who will refocus politics where it belongs, on caring for people.”
Field under Ardern’s leadership will face a well-funded and well organised right wing influencer Steve Bannon who has provided substantial support for European right-wing movements. He has worked with a number of high profile right-wing leaders, including Marine Le Pen in France, Viktor Orbán in Hungary and Matteo Salvini in Italy. Bannon’s efforts have included setting up “war rooms” to strategise and support these parties during elections.
Ardern will face huge challenges matching Bannon’s success and even moderate commentators have questioned what the Field Fellowship might achieve, or whether it is merely window dressing to help the Democratic administration in Washington DC to hang on while losing its grip in other directions.
Max Hayton is a New Zealand journalist who worked as a political correspondent in the Parliamentary Press Gallery in Wellington in his younger days. He then traveled to London to specialise in foreign television news. In 1989 he became Foreign Editor at the start-up private channel TV3 New Zealand. After some years he became the Foreign Editor at Television New Zealand where he worked until he retired.
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