Colin Sheridan: Little sympathy for our reliance on the US dollar
President Far Photo/ben Pursued Suggest War Harris From To Biden Be Both Crimes Ap Hyperbole For Picture: And It's Us Curtis May Joe Kamala Biden Yet
"The United States is also a one-party state, but with typical American extravagance, they have two of them.” — Julius Nyerere, first president of Tanzania.
Jimmy Kimmel was in tears. Social media was in meltdown. Barack Obama was in hiding. Donald Trump's victory this week seemed to be confusing for a great many people, but, honestly, I was confused as to what was confusing them. It couldn’t have been the ‘why,’ surely? No, we have tens of thousands of reasons why the Democrats lost that election, most of them lying dead in the Middle East.
Much more confusing — to me at least — was trying to figure out who everybody was on stage during Trump's victory speech. Am I seriously the only person alive who thought Dana White and Joe Rogan were the same person? So too, Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, the new Vice President JD Vance and Don Junior? Are they not all the same guy? And don’t get me started on the Melania's and the Ivankas and the Ivanas. That, my friends, is confusion manifest.
Even more confusing was why Irish people care so much that Kamala Harris lost. As if her defeat was a blow to some international moral convention we are all co-signatories of. Trump is a convicted felon, yes, but it's far from hyperbole to suggest Harris and Joe Biden may yet be pursued for war crimes.
Trump is a misogynist, yes, but Harris chose feminist icon Bill Clinton as the surrogate she trusted to win her Michigan. Trump hates immigrants, yes, but Harris raised her hand and shushed student protesters and Palestinian Americans when all they were looking for was a crumb of recognition from her campaign. Trump has no foreign policy, yes, but maybe no foreign policy is better than one that funds genocide.
So, what are we so appalled about? Oh, the 1,000 companies and tens of thousands of tech jobs that are suddenly at risk because we don’t like Trump, and he doesn’t like us, and he could take those jobs back off us if he can focus long enough to notice they’re even here. Well, we already know those jobs are under threat, as revealed this week that American ambassador to Ireland Claire Cronin had emailed Simon Harris to express concern over our potential passing of the Occupied Territories Bill, as the bill “would cause economic uncertainty for almost 1,000 US companies operating in Ireland".
What does it say about successive governments that we have become so dependent on them, and consequently so compromised because the country supplying those jobs is actively engaged in genocide? That we consider America's new president somehow less desirable than the warmonger he’s replacing is indicative not of our moral superiority, but our own flawed priorities.
The Democrats do not care about Ireland any more than they do about Palestine, which is saying something. We are only tolerable to them because we have an airport en route to the Middle East that we diligently allow their military to use. Oh, and we have a generous corporate tax rate we encourage them to exploit. There is no Irish American vote. There is no nostalgic connection with a homeland. We are irrelevant, not to American culture (for if American culture thrives, it does so despite, not because of its ruling elite), but certainly to American politics. Yet, by virtue of our decades-long subservience, we have become utterly beholden to them. My life may well be worse off under a Trump presidency, but how has it come to that? He won an election I had no vote in. He is not my president. That’s on the Irish government, not me.
So, let's bust some myths about the Democrats, being mindful, perhaps, that deconstructing one myth is not an endorsement of another. It was suggested by a smarter person than me on social media that Bill Clinton did not want Harris in the White House, because his wife did not win, and therefore the Clinton dynasty he dreamed of never manifested itself though Hillary. Given the dysfunctional state of American politics, this is entirely possible. It’s also possible that Barack Obama was a handsome man and a gifted orator, who — when compared with Black leaders of the past — was devoid of substance. As for Biden? He turned out to be exactly what his record told us he was — a self-proclaimed Zionist, who has propped up and defended a warmonger.
Was it worth it? The Clinton Institute. Barak Obama Plaza. Biden in Ballina. Ireland's benefactors, feted like revolutionaries when all they were was rich people propped up by rich people in the service of some very rich people. Arrogance, hubris, avarice; thy name is America.
We chose to lay down with them. That we emerge from this toxic affair with moral herpes is on us, and us alone.
We have nobody to blame but ourselves.