Cometh The Hour, Cometh The Slíbhín

After what they did to Zelenskyy, my gut reaction was relief. Micheál Martin conjured decades of Fianna Fáil slíbhínism and plámásed like only he could, and was rewarded by Trump saying he doesn’t want to do anything to hurt Ireland. But was the juice worth the squeeze?

Anyone who has experienced or observed bullying will quickly identify the 3 roles involved in a bullying scenario, the bully, the victim, and the coward. The bully thrives on performance and derives power from the appeasement offered by the coward. They then use this power to inflict abuse on the victim. The more appeasement, the longer the bullying is fuelled, and the longer the focus of the bully is diverted away from the coward and on to the victim.

Yesterday, the Taoiseach appeased a bully. Call it looking out for Ireland’s interest if you want, because he certainly did. Most of the world’s viagra, botox, and other pharmaceutical products are manufactured in Ireland, not to mention the tech giants with their European HQs, and the large tourism contingent of American’s that visit every year. It was the Taoiseach’s responsibility to ensure Ireland’s economic interests were protected. But I ask again, at what cost?

Trump and his administration are systematically dismantling the apparatus of government and consolidating power and resources with themselves and their oligarch supporters. They are attacking minorities, the freedom of the press, the right to protest, the rights of women, and want to remove the term limit on the sitting President. He is following Putin’s playbook and turning America into Russia version 2. If your view is that he can do what he wants in his own country because he was given a mandate in the election, then I wish we could all be as naive to think what happens in America doesn’t infect the rest of the western world in jig time.

Trump wants to ethnically cleanse Gaza and turn it into a luxury property development that he wants to own. He uses the word Palestinian as an insult. The Taoiseach papering over the differences of opinion between Ireland and America on Israel’s apartheid regime and the Palestinian’s right to self-determination by saying that a two-state solution is preferred but is getting hard to do as time moves on, is not fucking good enough. Saying that the humanitarian aspect is what the Irish people really care about is insulting and disrespectful to our history of being oppressed and our fight for our own self-determination. Of course humanitarian considerations are large in our minds, but so is the struggle for freedom and we know a coloniser when we see one.

The press briefing in the Oval Office yesterday covered a wide range of topics. Trump attacked trans people, encouraged support for a fellow rapist, and praised Ireland for being a tax haven in the past. All while Micheál Martin mostly sat and smiled, not being able to, or rarely being offered a chance to, speak the truth to power that was supposed to be the great opportunity for Ireland in recent yearly bilaterals.

Mixed into this spicebag of authoritarian bullshit were two key points that I think will have long-reaching consequences for Micheál Martin and Ireland. The first is Ireland’s relationship with the EU and European partners. Macron and Starmer went primarily to the White House in an attempt to grease the wheels before’s Zelenskyy’s visit. It didn’t work but it was in service of a bigger issue, the war in Ukraine.

Ireland used its meeting to try to secure its own economic interests, sometimes at the expense of the EU economy, as was evident when Trump bemoaned the amount of BMWs, Mercedes-Benz, and Volskwagens sold into America without any Chevrolets being bought in the middle of Munich. No counterpoint was offered by Micheál Martin on this or when Trump attacked the EU on their regulations, and in fact emphasised how Ireland stood with Apple in its tax case. It’s easy to stand by and help the bully redirect his anger elsewhere.

On The Last Word on Today FM yesterday evening, editor of The Business Post Daniel McConnell, in response to the attack on the EU at the meeting, offered the question of what the EU have done for Ireland recently, citing the Troika as a negative interaction, while brushing aside Brexit. How soon the unanimous and unwavering support that the 26 other EU member states continually gave to Ireland during the protracted Brexit negotiations shit show is waved aside. Unwavering support is easily received but reluctantly given it appears.

The second point of contention is a very local one, housing. Trump said having a housing problem was a good problem to have because it means you’re doing a good job. Micheál Martin laughed and congratulated Trump on a very good point. This could be Mícheál’s “living away beyond our means” moment.

Half a million young people are still living with their parents in Ireland. Over 15,000 homeless people are in emergency accommodation, over 4,000 of them children, and thousands more are not counted in substandard or precarious housing. Every level of the housing sector has been eviscerated because successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael governments have pursued private market based neoliberal solutions to the housing crisis. Fianna Fáil’s own Minister for Housing disseminated false housing figures that underpinned their election manifesto, which they kept quiet until after the election. Poverty and the housing crisis are destroying the social contract. The Taoiseach knows all of this, but was so blinkered in flattering Trump that he laughed off the housing crisis as a joke. The rot that is stealing the chance of prosperity from multiple generations of people is worthy of a joke to him.

The only way to take the power away from a bully is to call them out and stand up to them. Otherwise, you are taking the role of the coward that protects their own economic gain over the people in Gaza, your EU partners, and generations of young Irish people.

In doing so, you are still only delaying the inevitable. Trump put Ireland’s FDI economic model on notice yesterday. Saying he doesn’t want to do anything to hurt Ireland really means he is going to hurt the EU, and blame them when he tries to force American companies to reshore back to the States and out of Ireland. Eventually the bully turns on the coward.