AH, Baile Átha Cliath
In a recent conversation with a co-worker about politics, he mentioned that he “supported Trump”. I tried to ask why he supported Trump and he said something abstract about how he will take on the elites. After telling him I was left wing, he asked if I was a Democrat. To me it seems bizarre to that people in Ireland identify with the American political system instead of trying to analyse or assess their own one. Ironically, the only major political party to be actively engaged in this is Fine Gael, who keep comparing Sinn Féin to Donald Trump.
It seems to me a total oddity for people in Ireland, North and South of the British border, to identify with Donald Trump. What bearing does he have in Ireland? What constitutional power does he have? Has he ever commented about getting rid of the corrupt parties in Ireland or done anything to that effect? Has he supported the process of unification and the removal of the British occupation? Has he sought to resort to solve the homelessness crisis or those who create it?
The answer to all those questions is a firm NO, yet gaggles of conspiracy crazed delinquents continue to gather at the GPO repeating American conspiracy theories and expressing their support for the former President of America.
Despite claims by the far-right scumbags who anonymously pilfer the internet, the only logical conclusion I come to, is the same conclusion Liam Mellows came to while awaiting execution in Mountjoy in 1922. Ireland requires an intellectual revolution, rooted in Gaelic culture, Republicanism, and anti-imperialism. With this intellectual revolution will come a re-emphasis on the problems found in Ireland and an understanding of those problems. So that, instead, someday, some people of Ireland will not stage protests outside the GPO against the Bill Gates-George Soros conspiracy, but instead engage with the concrete political and economic issues we face.
What I said to my co-worker after we discussed the Trump-Democrat issue was the same. Our employer holds economic power in society, more than all of us as individuals, and that is ultimately who we should be engaging with. Our employer has several hundred million euro yet pays us just above minimum wage. Our employer exerts influence on elected officials by virtue of their vast wealth. Our employer does all this, in broad daylight and so does every other capitalist in Ireland.
There is no “great replacement” plan. There is no conspiracy to microchip us. There is no Bill Gates-George Soros-Chinese virus. There is only us; who work, who pay rent, who die in the streets and who get evicted, and them; the multi billionaires, who have secret bunkers and islands in case the world ends, who have access to every world leader by virtue of their exploitation of the entire world.
This relationship is characterised best by Warren Buffet’s own words: “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning”.
Capitalists is what they are called. Capitalists are open about how much money they make, how they spend it, who they exploit and the power relations of society. Yet it is working-class people who dispute the existence of this very same capitalist system. Using the triple C of capitalism, communism, and class, sends people into a tizzy, while talking about underground paedophile rings below a pizza shop is completely normal.
Now that Donald Trump is gone, perhaps we can have the beginnings of Liam Mellow’s desire for an intellectual revolution. Instead of discussing American conspiracy theories, lets focus on the problems in Ireland, and do something about them.