Ireland has a suicidal case of Trump Derangement Syndrome

Ireland has a problem with America. Irish politicians and the country’s establishment would, of course, deny this. They would point to the fact that 35 million Americans claim Irish descent, and that the Irish and American governments enjoy their own version of a “special relationship,” involving an annual presentation of a shamrock at the White House every St. Patrick’s Day. They would highlight the close cultural and economic ties between the two countries, particularly in the tech sector, which has seen eighteen of the largest American tech giants, from Apple to Microsoft, make Ireland their European home, which has been a lifeline to the Irish economy.

Ireland is under the new regime’s microscope

Ultimately, the UK may be Ireland’s nearest neighbor, but for many America will always be our dearest. So, you might think Irish leaders would be keen to keep the Yanks onside. Instead, they seem determined to alienate them.

The reason for such self-defeating truculence can be blamed on numerous factors, but chief among them is the excessive Trump Derangement Syndrome of Irish politicians. 

The most embarrassing example has been provided by, fittingly enough, Ireland’s most embarrassing international figure, President Michael D. Higgins, who has previously condemned Trump as a “regressive” figure. A veteran left winger, Higgins has spent much of the last year waging a rather Quixotic battle against Israel. 

While he had been quick to publicly congratulate Joe Biden when he beat Trump four years ago, this time he dragged his feet and failed to congratulate the incoming president after this election result. The silence coming from Aras an Uachtarain was maddening. After all, Higgins was happy to congratulate Iranian leader, Mahmoud Pezeshkian upon his election victory (Higgins then accused the baffled Israeli embassy in Dublin of leaking that letter until it emerged the Iranians had actually posted it online). Higgins finally wrote to Trump days later, where he waffled a bit about ending global hunger and climate change. It was a missive, you suspect, which has ended up in a wastepaper bin somewhere in Washington.

At least the Taoiseach Simon Harris called Trump and the two had a “constructive” conversation. But was it really wise of the Taoiseach to proudly post a picture of a “Harris 2024” election baseball cap before the election and make it no secret that he wanted his namesake to win? 

The heads of the other parties have been even less enthusiastic about Trump’s victory.

The leader of the Greens, Roderic O’Gorman, flat out refused to offer any congratulation at all, and said he would merely “acknowledge” the result, which I’m sure we’ll all agree was jolly decent of him.

Sinn Fein’s Mary Lou McDonald simply sighed that democracy must be respected, while Labour’s Ivana Bacick seemed to take it the hardest, and looking close to tears, simply described it as “devastating.”

This reflexively anti-Trump approach is not confined to the political classes. Ever since the election was announced, the Irish media has engaged in a concerted campaign to demonize and belittle Trump and anyone who might have the fascist inclination to vote for him.

As polling day grew closer and the likelihood of a Trump victory became clearer, the voices became more shrill. Where comparisons between Trump and Hitler were once slyly insinuated, now they were explicitly stated: Trump was a Nazi.

That paranoia reached its nadir when, a few nights before the election, one Irish hack appeared on a current affairs chat show and baldly stated that if Trump won, 2024 would be the last election America ever saw, because he would ban them and install himself as a dictator. 

The fact that the only person on the set who objected to such hysterical nonsense happened to be an American-born Democrat and staunch campaigner for Harris showed just how badly Trump Derangement Syndrome had infected Official Ireland. 

That madness has even spread to secondary schools, where one textbook recently received backlash for placing photographs of Trump and Hitler on the same page in the section about the dangers of stereotyping. Although given the huge controversy surrounding PSHE books in Ireland, which have included sexually explicit content for thirteen-year-olds, seeing Trump compared to Hitler seems almost benign.

Of course, none of this would matter if Trump didn’t care and his administration looked on Ireland as about as relevant as Liechtenstein. But those complex cultural and economic ties sometimes come at a cost.

Trump’s promise to cut corporate tax for America companies if they return home, and to hit them with massive tariffs if they don’t, has sent nervous shivers through Ireland, which would feel the impact more than any other country. It would be, as Simon Harris rightly said, “a trans-Atlantic trade shock.”

Last year, in response to Ireland’s proposed hate speech legislation, the then-Ohio senator J.D. Vance wrote to the Irish ambassador in Washington and warned about his concerns that, “authoritarian legislation pending in the Irish parliament that would proudly undermine… Ireland’s proud tradition of freedom of speech.”

The vice president-elect went on to cite the fact that: “President de Valera himself was imprisoned for sedition in 1918” before adding on a somewhat more ominous note that, “If this were happening in Russia or China we would call it authoritarian and threaten economic sanctions.”

So, Ireland is under the new regime’s microscope. This was further reinforced on Tuesday when apparently newly appointed secretary of state, Marco Rubio, declared that “countries in Europe recognizing a Palestinian state is a joke, I don’t know what state they’re talking about. It’s a state that never existed, by the way.” That was a direct response to Ireland’s decision last May to recognize a Palestinian state (along with Norway and Spain).

The Trump regime will literally decide the economic future of this country, and could potentially plunge Ireland into a catastrophic recession. The Irish are in danger of squandering all their goodwill for the sake of a few anti-Trump photo ops and rhetorical gasoline bombs. There may be trouble, a lot of trouble, ahead.

This article was originally published on The Spectator’s UK website.