JUST as the Olympic torch veered west this week, in a rather dystopian closing ceremony that took in Tom Cruise abseiling and live music from West Cork’s own Billie Eilish, I thought I’d veer west with the column too and take a look at what’s been going down across the Atlantic.
As it stands, we still can’t be sure if the America that the Olympics takes place in during 2028 will be a democratic union or whether California will have seceded from a Trump-led authoritarian regime by then. My young fella is mad to go to the next games and I sincerely hope that it’s even an option.
It might seem hyperbolic but saving democracy as we know it is the pitch being made by Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party as she attempts to win back momentum in swing states ahead of the election on November 5th.
It’s been a very good few weeks for the party in what has been an utterly crazy summer in US politics. It all seemed to kick off with Biden’s disastrous debate performance which effectively ended his campaign in one fell swoop, followed by an almost equally disastrous assassination attempt on Donald Trump which many felt was the beginning of the end for the Democratic challenge.
Trump has stumbled big time since – appointing a controversial running mate in JD Vance, who will do little to convince middle ground voters that the presidency wouldn’t end like Trump’s last – a laughing stock in Covid-19 disarray.
He then went on to question if Harris is really black in front of a conference of black American journalists. After recently being shot in the ear, you’d think he’d have an aversion to repeatedly shooting himself in both feet.
Since then, the Democrats have moved strongly and rather wisely. Harris replaced Biden, money started to flood into the campaign and she went on to appoint Tim Walz as her running mate.
This was a surprise and perhaps brilliant decision.
Walz is an ex-high school coach and teacher with none of the personal wealth of anyone else in the field. The concept of the high school coach is a big deal in American society (as anyone who watched Friday Night Lights will attest to) and this guy has a homespun, authentic vibe all the way down to his ability to appear on ESPN and trade football stats with the best of them.
During their wild and energetic first rallies together, Walz even halted the event for a woman who fainted in the crowd, waiting to continue until she had been given water and taken care of.
These are the values that you don’t see on the other side of the aisle where fear, lies, conspiracy and all the stuff you might hear on the Joe Rogan podcast is the order of the day.
Waltz even has strong Wexford links which might be no bad thing come Patrick’s Day. Harris’ Irish connections are, rather unfortunately, to a Northern Irish slave owner so this may not be one to dwell on come March 17th.
Trad-fest in the USA
WHAT is clear from all the coverage of politics in the US is how divided the country is and it’s shocking to see how people could live in one country but in completely different realities.
When I saw coverage of the ‘trad wife’ craze that is gripping certain parts of social media, it reminded me of how different middle America and the coastal cities or so-called ‘elites’ can be.
For those of you not in the know, the ‘trad wife’ does not refer to a partner who is forced to travel from session to session with their fiddle-playing spouse.
No, it denotes a woman who believes in and practices traditional gender roles and has grown as a popular subculture, with its own aesthetic and following, since around 2018.
The phenomenon is probably best exemplified by Hannah Neeleman who has 9.9 million followers on Instagram where she posts about daily life on the farm with her rampantly heterosexual rancher husband and their eight children.
It’s all white linen clothes, home baking and beauty pageants. The aesthetic, as you will see, is very Little House on the Prairie, and it espouses socially conservative norms whilst making an absolute shed load of money for Neeleman and her family in the process.
Of course, the Maga crowd love this but it drives progressives absolutely crazy and much of the publicity around the trend is driven by livid journalists on the left.
Of course, these things are usually only ten years away here and you’d wonder if you’ll have ‘comely maiden’ Instagrammers dancing at the crossroads around churns of milk in Ireland, in the years ahead?
Going for gold ... bullion
I READ with interest how lucrative the Olympics can be for certain athletes in certain countries during the week. Hong Kong and Singapore pay their athletes around $750,000 for a gold medal.
Indonesia offers $300,000, Israel $271,000 and Kazakhstan $250,000. Further down the pecking order, the Americans get $38,000 and the Australians just $13,000.
Team Ireland members have no such luck and the government is basically being shamed into ramping up funding for their facilities and training after years of grossly overinvesting in horses and greyhounds.
Of course, for many, it’s about nothing as crude as money. The Skibb lads got a quick lift home with their golds after the Olympics – you got the sense that there was work to be done and no hype to get distracted by.
And anyone who saw the four Irish women running the race of their lives in the 4 x 400m relay final wouldn’t begrudge them any amount of investment in the years ahead. Some athletes, and their achievements, do things for the nation that are just priceless.
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