To listen to Irish politicians and Ireland’s class of professional holders of correct opinions in the media, you would think that something extraordinary has gotten into the Irish people, turning them into an almost rabid band of uncontrollable haters.
This weekend alone, I counted no fewer than six pieces in the Sunday Papers all making the same case: That Irish politicians are suddenly subject to profound and unprecedented hostility from the Irish people. That they no longer feel safe. That social media, that great fouler of global discourse, has turned a section of the voting public into rabid jackals thirsting for political blood.
This particular narrative, it should be noted, really suits our friends in the media. It suits them because in an era of declining readership and newspaper purchasing, their one remaining niche is that they are the sole purveyors of uncorrupted public sobriety when it comes to the discourse. Nobody would be making threats against Simon Harris or his family if all they knew about him was what they read in the Irish Times, or the Independent, or heard on Newstalk. This to the media is a point of pride, instead of what it should be, which is a source of introspection.
It therefore must follow that if threats are being made – as they disgracefully are – against the Tánaiste and other politicians, the blame must lie with people reading things about their politicians in sources other than the above mentioned.
All of which, neatly, makes a case for increased taxpayer funding of journalism, more restrictions on social media, and harsher criminal penalties for saying offensive and threatening and stupid things.
There’s another useful thing about this particular narrative: It avoids any alternative explanations for public anger.
It is of course necessary to preface the succeeding paragraphs with the appropriate qualification: Making threats of harm against somebody or their family is not “free speech” – it is a crime. Those who do it justly risk arrest and prosecution.
But what is it that is driving so many people to anger, and in some cases to criminality? What if it actually is the fault of the Tánaiste, and other politicians?
The Sunday Independent/Ireland Thinks poll yesterday found that the top two concerns for the public are housing, the cost of living, and immigration. It found that 58% of the public, a clear majority, disapprove of the Government’s performance. It found that Micheál Martin, the Taoiseach, is the only senior politician to clear a 40% approval rating, and even then his rating is an anemic 44%. By contrast, Bertie Ahern’s approval rating when he left office was in the mid 60’s.
It is not hard to see the problem: the Government and wider political class is not acting on the public’s priorities.
And what’s more: The anger the citizen feels at the Government and wider political class is returned with interest. Read the news in Ireland for even a fortnight and you’ll see the pattern: So far as our politicians are concerned, their unpopularity with the public means… that there’s something wrong with the public. Not with them.
Consider the last week alone: The Tánaiste mooted new laws to control the public from being mean about politicians. Dublin City Council engaged the Gardai about the massive problem of… Irish people flying their own flag. The Garda Commissioner warning about the dangers of “political extremism”.
But the evidence here is straightforward: Every poll shows the same thing. Being dissatisfied with Ireland’s political class isn’t extremism, it is the norm. We may surmise from yesterday’s opinion poll for example that fully two thirds of the Irish population are unhappy with Simon Harris, and an even greater number take a dim view of Labour’s Ivana Bacik. Sinn Fein’s Mary Lou McDonald fares little better. Asked if they would like to see Ryan Tubridy back on RTE, a large majority said “no”. The public is not keen on any of these people.
And what are the public to do? Vote out Simon Harris so they can get two people – Bacik and McDonald – that they like even less? It is little wonder that some of us have taken to just shouting loudly and in rage in the hope that anger might have us taken seriously.
If there is political extremism in Ireland, it is because the political and media class as a whole is determined to place perfectly mainstream viewpoints in the “extreme” camp… case in point being a comment made by Newstalk and Virgin Media’s Kieran Cuddihy last week when he casually said on the airwaves that “of course nobody would defend the people with anti-immigrant views”….. which is to say in essence that Cuddihy is comfortable speaking for 25% of the population and ignoring the 75% or so who hold those views.
Revolutions occur when political power is concentrated in the hands of a small few people to the grave dissatisfaction of a great mass of the public. I am not predicting a revolution in Ireland – we’re a long way off that. But we have one of the necessary prerequisites: A narrow and self-serving political class that represents a small portion of the population, with a large amount of people structurally locked outside of a say in the running of their own country.
Politicians should be grateful that the anger, to date, has been relatively mild. It is likely to get worse as long as the present conditions continue.