THIS week is about staying calm and carrying on in the face of things you can’t control. Number one is the summer, which seems to have temporarily absconded, and which I unfortunately can’t magic back no matter how many times I refresh the Met Éireann app.
Number two is the imminent death of democracy and a changing world order … but more on that later.
Number three is my own frustration with my lack of planning for concert season in Dublin, which is in full swing at the moment. In recent days we’ve had Taylor Swift, Rammstein, Shania Twain, LCD Soundsystem, Air, Elbow, Fatboy Slim, The Saw Doctors … Listen, the list goes on. And a lot of these things are happening within a short cycle of my home. And did I think to get a ticket to one of them? I did not. So for once in July my bank account is healthy, even though my Fomo (fear of missing out) levels have peaked.
It’s times like this that I remember why I chose to be exiled in a city like this. Much of my youth in West Cork was spent pining for concerts and new people to meet and different experiences. These days, I get my fill of all this culture when I go back to West Cork in August for my ‘big hit of home’, so I’ve pretty much resigned myself to this mix and I hate to admit it, but Dublin has never felt so like home.
And as I give out a fair bit in this column, it’s worth saying that there has hardly been a better time to live in Ireland, I mean ever, even though we have our fair share of problems and the odds seem so stacked against the young. But wasn’t it ever thus? And didn’t we all figure it out in the end?
Martin is FF’s ‘chair’ leader
IT’S music of a different variety in Fianna Fáil these days as Micheál Martin arranges chairs maniacally at the top level of the party. First of all Michael McGrath is off to Europe, which feels like an odd choice for someone who we presumed was the leader in waiting, but perhaps this will be another string to his bow for a future return. In the meantime, maybe Mr Martin feels a little more confident that another term as co-parenting Taoiseach with his old muckers in Fine Gael is in prospect.
The move of Jack Chambers to Minister of Finance seems a wise move in this case. He is elevating someone, held in high esteem within the party but whose profile outside is less certain, into a prominent position ahead of a giveaway pre-election budget. I heard that Chambers is a very talented mimic so there’s never been a better time to do his best impression of Charlie McCreevy: ‘When I have it, I spend it!’
Of course, there is a lot of speculation in politico circles that Martin is really lining up his successors so he himself can have a run at the Áras in a few years. Given the amount of airtime Bertie Ahern has been getting recently, he might have to wrestle on the lawn for that chance yet.
Trump is Biden time
DID ye see THE debate? Good God, my skin has been crawling all week.
As Joe Biden has repeatedly said, there is nothing less than the future of American democracy at stake in this year’s US presidential election. So he, of all people, will know that it was a Hindenburg-level disaster. I could only watch about five minutes of highlights in the end.
Biden has been a good president and has governed wisely in difficult times. That he couldn’t land a blow against a convicted felon who literally was in court for paying off a porn star he had sex with while his wife was pregnant, is just unforgivable.
It is heart-breaking to think that this is the state America finds itself in, with the Republican GOP in the hands of a narcissist who’s watched too many Hitler documentaries, and the Democrats now paralysed with an impossible situation.
Do they stay the course and hope that Biden can recover, even if all hope of him actually beating Trump has now evaporated? Or do they roll the dice with another candidate?
They still have time but the ultimate choice is with Joe Biden who will have to volunteer to step down for this to happen. There is historical precedent. In 1968, Lyndon Johnson’s approval ratings were rock bottom because of inflation and the Vietnam war, and he stepped down. Unfortunately, this ushered in the law-and-order period under Richard Nixon, so it comes laced with risk.
Biden is a man of deep faith and I do think he believes it is his calling to keep Trump out. It is hard to argue that he is literally facing down evil. Trump is a dangerous egotist, narcissist and liar who will embolden Putin, the Chinese and autocrats everywhere. It will be a disaster for our export-driven economy. The stakes could not literally be higher. And with this week’s backfired elections in Paris, the list of allies is getting shorter, should a nativist establishment take over in Paris.
Hence, why I am trying to focus on keeping calm in the face of things I can’t control. But some weeks are easier than others.
