The Donald Trump Defenders Find Their Irish Champion

There is a certain satisfaction to be derived from having one’s opinions – or prejudices – confirmed and that is certainly true in relation to the odious political views of the conservative newspaper columnist, Ian O’Doherty. I’ve touched upon his writing before, notably his obsessive animosity towards the Irish language and by logical extension those who speak the Irish language, both individuals and communities. Indeed hostility towards the indigenous culture of this island nation is something of a badge of honour among the right-wing press in Ireland, the socially quasi-liberal but economically fully-libertarian clique. So here’s O’Doherty criticising senior politicians in Ireland for speaking out against the divisive election campaign being run by the real estate mogul Donald Trump, the Republican Party candidate for the presidency of the United States.

“Micheál Martin is the latest offender, with his clumsy and foolish interjection into the US presidential campaign which, one presumes, was done with the sole intention of getting a meeting with Hillary Clinton should she win, as is looking increasingly likely. According to Martin: “The behaviour of the Republican candidate, Mr Trump, has a frightening amount in common with extreme-right parties in Europe,”…

What these …clumsy, unsolicited interventions have in common is a blithe disregard for those Irish people who actually quite like Donald Trump and who both understood and sympathised with the Brits who voted out.

It’s easy for him to say that Trump is just as bad as the far-right in Europe; even easier for the rest of us to see that his assertion is laughably naïve.

Trump wants to secure his nation’s borders, which is something every Irish politician also pledges to do.

The only violence that we have seen in the US presidential debate has come from the anti-Trump goons who shut down his rally in Chicago.”

Which may be the first time in his entire journalistic career that Ian O’Doherty has defended a “republican” of any description!

Thankfully, I’m sat in a rather nice room on the top floor of an aristocratic if pleasingly dilapidated hotel looking out at the princely seat of a former duchy of the old Holy Roman Empire, experiencing the unfamiliar joys of an autumn in the marches of Mitteleuropa. It may be for work reasons, and there is a long night ahead, but even the petty mewling of O’Doherty can’t disturb my delight in the mise en scène before me.

Meanwhile, Trump TV…!