The first step in democracy failing is trust evaporating. Fair-minded people have had their worst, almost cliched, suspicions about the political establishment confirmed by what has emerged over the past week. One phrase that keeps being repeated is: “you couldn’t make it up.” The dominant feeling is anger in all its forms; fuming, appalled, disgusted. You can feel the rage in the air.
The crossovers of elitism, backslapping, clubbiness, cavalierness, arrogance and the sense of "one rule for them, one for the rest of us" all exist within golfgate – and the political establishment doesn't have any defence against what people have read about and listened to in terms of the cascading details of the scandal. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have been potentially irreparably bruised, and no matter who loses a position or a job, it will be impossible to draw a line under this incident without drastic action that remedies the entire political system. If they want to save themselves, then it's time for a reset.
This disintegration of trust is compounded by the dominant characteristic of this government, which – in its opening weeks – is incompetence. The Government is populated by Ministers who do not appear to have a handle on their briefs.
For years, the perception that unqualified ministers were appointed to head departments, positions that demand a tremendous amount of expertise, has dogged Irish electoral politics. Promotions to ministerial positions are all too often based on a geographical carving up on territories to appease a party’s membership and voter base, or on the basis of intra-party pecking orders and leadership loyalties. This is no way to appoint people to run large departments that are of utmost importance to the functioning of almost every aspect of our society.
Parties and individuals involved in electoral politics take very seriously the gravity of this moment. While things seem dire, this is also an opportunity to reimagine how we “do” politics as a nation. This is a new era, and we need a new approach.
If this does not happen, then it is clear that the centre will not hold, and not because we live in a culture where hyperbole and polarisation thrives, but because the centre has failed to address its fundamental flaws. People want accountability, transparency and competence. When political parties lack those, and paper over them with clubbiness, nepotism, and inherited intergenerational political power, it’s no wonder the public responds by gravitating towards political spheres and discourse that offer something radically oppositional, or indeed relief and comfort through raging against the establishment machine, or at the most extreme end, conspiracy theories and a dark assessment of both the present and future.
Ireland, like all countries, has specific desires regarding what its public wants from its politicians. Fairness, empathy, accountability, and competence are top of that list.
What many politicians in the kinda-centre-right parties that have occupied our governments for a century fail to grasp, is the cultural shift that has occurred and continues to occur in the 21st century. The game has changed, the pitch markings have been redrawn, yet they’re barely warming up on the sidelines.
The vast majority of “politics” young people in this country experience is not party politics – yet Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil continue to fight a phoney war of ancient irrelevant tribalism. The fact that they viewed their coming-together in coalition as “historic” amplifies that detachment. People want ambitious ideas, yet nothing even approaching inspiring or novel has emerged from Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil in recent years. If anything, the latter has reverted to type, and the former is seen in conflict with many Irish people’s visions for society as a culturally rich, community-driven, interconnected, liveable and affordable place where people aren’t tormented by the ugly gazumping forces of global capital.
People’s standards are higher now, and many are not interested in the 20th century throwback politicians Fianna Fáil offers, nor the neoliberal besuited shininess of Fine Gael. Both parties are out of step with the times and the public. They have not built movements, and the votes they get feel driven by habit, conservatism, or down to of a lack of alternatives. The new politics is also about how people orientate around issues, often issues that don’t even directly impact them, but that are part of a broader aspirational vista for society. This is an age of new solidarity that resists the traumas caused by the inequities of late-stage capitalism.
But the unifying key to all of this is accountability culture. Accountability is one of the most dominant cultural forces of our time, yet Irish party politics – stuck in a reactive loop responding to events within its own bubble, instead of understanding the broader forces that actually move politics – cannot seem to grasp that.