Let me show a little of my politics on my sleeve. The night that Barack Obama was elected eight years ago, I watched American media through the night. When it became obvious that Obama was a sure thing in the early hours, I was watching alone when, to my utter surprise I started crying – tears of relief and happiness.
No American election had ever had that effect on me – and I had keenly watched them all – and I have to say that I still wonder to this day why I reacted in that way. I also want to say that I have never regretted that immediate and utterly spontaneous emotional reaction. It was how I felt. I had seen the George W Bush presidency as a parliament of dunces – not because of some ideological attitude but because of a deep seated loathing of Rumsfeld and the other clowns that Bush had surrounded himself with.
I knew instinctively that Obama was a “class act” – a man of reason and judgment.
But more than that, I saw in Obama a man whose instinct was one of kindness. Not some naïve like Jimmy Carter – but a man who instinctively knew that the Israeli- Palestinian issue required the US to stand away from AIPAC, the Israeli political front in the US; a man who did not instinctively discount the Muslim world simply as a retrograde anachronism; and as a man who believed that the US while possessing power was not under some trigger-happy impulse to project that power at will.
As a serving Irish Minister, I had alone broken ranks and condemned the US Bush regime for Guantanamo. It was, and is, a lasting stain on America. In ten or twenty years’ time, people will view the Guantanamo footage and ask where our collective conscience was. It will, sadly, be ten or twenty years too late.
To this day, I regret and condemn the second Bush regime. While it may eventually turn out as the equal or superior of the Trump regime, new barriers were broken in terms of rendition for torture, waterboarding and the like.
I have to say that I detest the Trump presidency even before it starts.This week’s Trump “press conference” marked a new, and soon to be exceeded, low in the history of US political politics. It contrasted so strongly with the farewell Obama events in Chicago and the White House.
Trump’s press conference this week proved to the world, as far as I am concerned, that he is a vainglorious, narcissistic, intellectually limited bombastic clown. The “press conference” demonstrated how just far the degradation of US politics and democracy has fallen.
Alas, Trump is not becoming more presidential as he approaches inauguration; the US presidency is becoming Trump-esque. Wall Street cheerleaders may welcome a temporary boost to the confidence of those who seek a higher return on their accumulated wealth by investing in equities.
But, in truth, the US political and economic consensus is destined to implode unless American voters empower politicians who will stand up to plutocrats at home in the same way as America used to stand up to Russian kleptocrats and oligarchs internationally. Recent Dow Jones spikes say nothing of the underlying American malaise.
And there lies the problem. The Trump-Putin axis is an alliance between American oligarchs and Russian kleptocrats. There is a curious symmetry and commonality to their dysfunctional worlds.
Does it really matter, I wonder, whether, as alleged, the Russians have created salacious footage of “the Donald” behaving perversely? We already know that he revels in sexual assaults upon the over-awed.
Whether or not Trump is more addicted to water-boarding of terrorists than to water-sports in Russian hotels, he is damaged goods. The wider world likes him not.
His moronic behaviour at his press conference this week was simply embarrassing to behold. And when he was finished, it was a telling eye-opener to watch him seeking affirmative hand-shakes from a cowed platform party of lackeys.
None of us in Europe would hire him for any post of responsibility. But the Americans collectively have handed him the keys of the White House and of the nuclear codes.
Before Trump’s election, I warned here about complacency about his prospects of success. He is the Frankenstein’s monster fruit of the Republicans’ dalliance with Tea Party politics.
The Republicans bear total responsibility for his election. They could have stopped him. They dithered and are now falling feebly into line.
Now that they have control of both Houses of Congress and now that they have their nominee in the White House, there can be no excuses. Everything is their responsibility. They cannot blame anyone except themselves for what happens next
I see very few parallels between Trump and Reagan. Trump is not trusted or liked. He is mean-spirited, vindictive and self-obsessed by character. Reagan was “none of the above”. He tried to be inclusive.
We Irish are, meantime, entering a brave, new world.
The moral of the story, as far as the Irish are concerned, is that our politics and prospects are not simply set upon an ever-upward cycle of achievement and prosperity.
Brexit means that we will lose a close ally at the EU Council’s events. The remaining EU members will not easily concede our case for special post-Brexit terms.
We badly need to secure the best possible deal for Ireland; we must avoid an Ireland-UK tariff barrier on the maximum range of goods.
Before Ireland even contemplates an IRExit, we have to ask a few questions.
Why are EU federalists not heeding Donald Tusks’s call to seek freedom and diversity rather than demanding new steps towards integration?
Why would we want our own floating currency? What would an IRExit do to FDI in Ireland?
If the EU is really our friend, it needs to start showing it. We have clear and special post-Brexit needs. We cannot afford to be swept into the orbit of a Franco-German alliance as a peripheral non-entity.
Phil Hogan’s recent Epistle to the Irish on Being Good Europeans was at once shallow, meaningless and tendentious. What exactly is on offer to us from the EU if we loosen our links to Northern Ireland and Britain, Phil?
Trump is by no means a natural ally of Irish interests. Nor are EU federalists.
We are collectively being cast adrift on very turbulent seas. Our political leaders’ duty is to ensure that we do not become a mere prize in an international game of political salvage.
The project of Irish independence should not be allowed just to flame up and burn out in a period of 100 years. Statesmanship is in short supply here.
Is the present emasculated minority government that we have capable of delivering the leadership, the vision and the solutions that Ireland now needs so badly? Alas, I very much doubt it.