Ireland's president elect is a left-wing, anti-establishment figure who is outspoken on Gaza
https://apnews.com/article/ireland-president-catherine-connolly-profile-palestinian-eu-c26fbec5963645a57b0ddc0c617ffc40Open linkView original on lemmy.world504
Comments28
I bet my left nut that we will see a large social media disinformation campaign coming down on Ireland soon and a shift to hard right politics the next election.
Ireland’s current president that she’s replacing is also fairly left wing. It’s a ceremonial position for the most part. The head of the Irish government is the Taoiseach which is essentially the PM. The president is just the head of state.
Oh, was the last president the guy who brought his dog everywhere?
Sure is! Catherine has some big shoes to fill because “Miggeldy” is beloved. The fact that she can ball helps.
Also helps that she's a GILF.
Say goodbye to your left nut. There's a small hard right in Ireland, the rest of us are too busy enjoying ourselves
There's a small hard right in the US (and probably most other places that are starting to get more authoritarian), that doesn't stop them from manipulating their moderate compatriots.
Far-right groups in the United States have unfortunately become more widespread, as illustrated by the roughly 30% of Americans who consistently poll in favor of Trump's political positions, even in the case of otherwise unpopular policies.
As has happened in similarly backsliding democracies such as Turkey and Hungary, the increasing control of the American far-right over print media, broadcast media, and social media has resulted in the silencing of dissent and is unduly influencing public opinion to improve their odds in future elections.
Yes, but those are far-right groups who represent a tiny minority manipulating more moderate right-leaning demographics. Most Trump voters you'll meet will probably be really personable until you hit a specific topic they've been trained to react negatively to.
Thats the main problem in fighting these trends, people expect everyone supporting these awful policies to actually know what they mean and represent the hard right that is just influencing them.
Aye, in terms of actual numbers there was a small hard right in Germany in the 1930s...
Sometimes you can seize power as a minority if you're sneaky and underhanded enough, or if your opponent is complacent and weak.
People are easily fooled into acting against their own interests and helping their enemies defeat them (Brexit being an obvious recent example).
Ireland understand colonialism from the victim point of view. Americans "leftists" are swooning over an Abu Ghraib torturer with a Nazi tattoo who says he didn't know it was a Nazi tattoo he just wanted to get a tattoo of a skull to commemorate his four tours fighting, as if that's better. That's today's US progressive.
Trump is a symptom, not the disease.
Do you have a name to go with that torturer or do I get to just take your word for it?
"Leftist" is a particularly difficult descriptor to nail down, especially in the US. It can refer to people with actually progressive views, or just people who see something that helps them advocate violence against people they dont like, or even elements of Stalinism that people like to assume is progressive when it's closer to fascism in practice.
Oh, there is no need for the troll farm spreading the disinformation to be Irish... It could be based in any dictatorship wanting to sow division in democracies to weaken them. It's happened before.
Im willing to bet no one is doing that for the President of Ireland because their actual leader is the PM.
Good thing I said next election, not next presidential election.
You had me in the first half and then said the irish will go right. They are, by and large, the most oppressed, most stepped on, most ignored people in the world. But hey do have each other. There is not a way in hell that Ireland will pivot to hating their neighbors, they're too socially advanced for that. And before you say it hit other "advanced" societies too, I said socially advanced. The one thing the USA has been stripping from every other part of the west, where it was still left.
The irish are going nowhere.
I’d love to as well, minus the weather. The number of Palestinian flags out and about literally all across the country when I was visiting last month was really heartening. Definitely a nation that knows what their soul is and is not complacent.
I would, but you have to be natural born Irish to get the artist stipend...
I wonder what approach she'll take on the low company taxes making Ireland a haven for US big tech.
None. She's purely representative.
I’d tell em to read about Finna Fail but I don’t want to disappoint them.
The seem like your bog standard neoliberal "conservative" party. I'm not into Irish politics, can you tell me more?
That’s the gist of it. They’re very pro-business, and beyond that are pretty milquetoast. Typical catch all party that will chameleon into whatever is popular at the moment. That’s my take as an outsider, at least. I’m sure someone that lives in Ireland could speak with more authority on the matter.
Yeah, after having two of my friends move to separate places, neither which is Dublin, I'm fairly convinced that Ireland is just simply not that good of a country. They have good social services for artists, but the country as a whole is just not very family friendly, and keeps up with that tradition. Which is why their population never recovered from their historic peak.
Childcare is definitely expensive there, but I don’t think that’s unique to Ireland. Sure as shit beats raising kids in the US considering they have universal healthcare, free preschool, paid maternity and paternity, and low violent crime rates. Cost of living and housing availability are definitely issues though.
I love it over there; I’d consider emigrating if they’d take me
The US is a low bar sadly. I'm comparing it to Canada, Germany or Hungary primarily, as those are the countries that I have lived in.
I don't think Ireland has free preschool. Or rather, not enough coverage of it. One of my friends was really struggling with this, as they were not able to resume their career until their kid turned 2 and they've found an early childhood education centre.
It's also devoid of any sort of comprehensive rail or other transit systems outside of Dublin. It's very car centric, meaning your children will depend on you to ferry them around between locations until they can drive a car by themselves.
Canada is very similar in most of these aspects. Except for Québec maybe.
Keep in mind that the President of Ireland is really a symbolic and ceremonial position with very little direct power, as it should be!