Who is the anti-woke crusader ACT has invited to its AGM?

Sunday, 13 July 2025

He believes he may have influenced the US election results, is worried about Soviet-style communism in New Zealand, popularised the term “OK groomer” in relation to the LGBTQ+ community, and has been criticised for mocking George Floyd’s death.

Self-described “free speech absolutist” US author James Lindsay is today due to speak to an audience of ACT supporters and members at its annual rally in Auckland, off the back of a Free Speech Union tour he headlined in March.

A party spokesperson said Lindsay would speak about “reclaiming liberalism in an age of extremes”, having met party leader David Seymour earlier this year when Lindsay came on tour. Seymour had read his co-authored book Cynical Theories and wanted to meet him, a spokesperson said.

The co-author of How to have Impossible Conversations and The Queering of the American Child as well as Cynical Theories, Lindsay has become a figure in the “anti-woke” (including identifying what he calls a “woke right”), identity politics, free speech sphere.

His beliefs, criticisms and discussions about communism, Marxism and white genocide conspiracy are the centrepiece of his theories, and which critics have called conspiratorial, eccentric, and alarming.

Lindsay became somewhat known in the United States, where he is from, for his role in a 2017-2018 academic hoax dubbed the grievance studies affair, where he and others submitted fake papers to an academic journal - which were largely published - with the aim of demonstrating that academia were prone to publishing ideology it endorsed without proper rigorous review.

In recent years he’s labelled trans advocates “groomers”, made light of the death of George Floyd, and criticised what he calls growing class consciousness, or “wokeness”, as modern Marxism or communism in disguise, frequently referencing korenizatsiya - a Soviet-era communist policy which he said was apparent in parts of the US.

“I am very concerned that that is a driving factor in the tensions of New Zealand politics,” he told Q+A’s Jack Tame in March. “If you’re going to import a Soviet programme to deal with social and political and cultural and economic problems, you should know it’s a Soviet programme.”

An ACT spokesperson said the party’s interest in Lindsay stemmed from his championing of personal freedom and personal responsibility, freedom of speech and expression, and evidence-based policy making.

Free Speech Union director Jonathan Ayling said Lindsay had toured for five days with the Union in March, including media engagements, donor dinners and public events. One at Parliament sold out, with about 30 people having to stand, Ayling said.

The Union aimed to platform diverse and competing voices that Kiwis might not necessarily get to hear - and while audiences might “vehemently disagree on much of the substance” of speakers’ claims, the core point was free speech, Ayling said.

ACT agreed - with its spokesperson saying, “We think everyone’s a little tired of cancel culture and ideological purity tests. You don’t have to agree on everything someone says to find value in listening to them.”

Ayling described Lindsay as articulate and who had attracted a growing audience of under 25s. Around the country there was “enormous enthusiasm for his perspective”. His “precise, objective terms” about the meaning of woke had “resonated with people’s experiences”.

“I’m absolutely conscious of the fact that some of his views are undoubtedly offensive and some find them inflammatory,” said Ayling. “[But] as the Free Speech Union … we view him as making important points on free speech and beyond that it’s not our position to approve or oppose.”

Victoria University lecturer with the school of history, philosophy, political science and international relations, Jesse Spafford, said Lindsay’s political theories were “dubious” and didn’t bear scrutiny.

“There is a fine line between doing political theory badly and suffering from delusions, and James Lindsay firmly straddles that line,” said Spafford, whose research focuses on debates between libertarians, socialists, and anarchists about the moral status of the market and state.

“Lindsay sees a vast array of political phenomena as being connected in ways that most other people would find puzzling and odd.

“At the same time, he often views politics through a conspiratorial lens, worrying about nefarious plots organised by the World Economic Forum as well as intellectuals’ efforts to import ‘Cultural Marxism’ and the teachings of the Frankfurt School.”

While Lindsay had a large social media following - about 500,000 followers on X, and had been invited on the popular Joe Rogan Experience podcast - Spafford said he was not terribly popular or well known, despite apparently having made a career out of his theorising.

But Lindsay appears to at least believe he’s influential. On Q + A Lindsay appeared to take credit for Donald Trump repeating his claims that Kamala Harris was a Marxist, at a campaign rally last year. He believed it was possible Trump had been shown a viral video of him saying it, and that after Trump repeated it, Harris’ own campaign tanked.

Political commentator Ben Thomas said he could see that Lindsay’s views had parallels with issues that ACT was interested in, including universities and free speech.

“Without going into the bizarre taxonomies of the online right and left and the political culture wars overseas, it would probably be fair to say ACT and New Zealand First are in the market for the anti-woke vote,” Thomas said.

“ACT’s nature is to get into the academic or intellectual underpinnings of what you might call the anti-woke ideas. Does that mean this guy in ACT’s wheelhouse? It’s difficult to say, [but] there is a lot of crossover … but whether there is a large constituency for people who want to get into the academic dissection of it, who knows.”

Thomas said today’s AGM - or rally, as the party calls it - would be about “stirring the troops” and the voter base.

“In terms of the next year ahead, it’s the same thing for all of the governing parties, trying to maintain an independent identity … while not undermining the coalition as a whole.”

The most recent The Post/Freshwater Strategy poll, taken in June, had ACT on 8%, while a Taxpayers Union Curia poll this week put the party at 9.1%, slightly behind NZ First which was on 9.8% .

The party has ridden high off the back of leader Seymour taking the deputy prime ministership in June, and his stint as acting prime minister during a period of global instability. And while it hasn’t all been a success - Seymour’s prized Treaty Principles Bill ultimately failed - Thomas said the party had shown it would follow through on its campaign promises.

Immigration NZ said when Lindsay travelled to New Zealand earlier this year on a New Zealand Electronic Travel Authority (NZeTA) he was granted a visitor visa, which allowed short-term trips for tourism or business.

ACT said the details of Lindsay’s speaking fee were commercially sensitive.

“The rally is a paid event and ticket sales will cover the cost of Dr Lindsay’s appearance.”