Donald Trump’s Irish Envy
The indicted criminal formerly known as Donald Trump is coming to Ireland next month. Presumably he saw President Biden on television receiving vast amounts of love and adulation and Trump wants some of that too. It’s a clear case of Irish Envy. Somewhere Freud is cringing.
In any event I’ve got some news for Trump. He’s not welcome on the Emerald Isle. Nobody outside of America anywhere of any consequence wants to hear from him. Nobody who’s not a fool wants to be seen or associated with him.
Trump’s days of international import or significance ended the day he tried to murder his Vice President. It ended the day that the American people summarily booted him out. The world doesn’t want him either, even if some sick and dysfunctional part of America still does. He’s a washout, a has-been, a deadbeat, a loser.
Trump’s envious neoteny is what I would expect from a five year old child who saw his seven year old brother riding his tricycle and suddenly wants one too. Trump has nothing for the people of Ireland, no comprehension of “the troubles” in the north, no historical insight into the devastation that Cromwell brought to Irish Catholics in the south, and nothing to say about the consequent bitterness that has rippled through the centuries. Trump is about division, and Ireland has had too much of that for too long.
The people of the island that brought the world William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, Oscar Wilde and Jonathan Swift have nothing to say to the “the Short-Fingered Vulgarian.” Just because Trump is bafflingly popular with the lowest American lowbrow doesn’t mean he’ll get anything resembling respect anywhere else. To the rest of the world Trump is a shocking aberration, like mass gun murders and early obesity. He’s something to be avoided, not harped upon. And he’s certainly not to be embraced.
But because Trump is Trump he has to be the centre of attention. And because he can’t bear to see anyone else get praise, especially not the President, he’s coming to Ireland. As someone with deep Irish ancestral roots, I expect they’ll give him a welcome all right. And that welcome will spell “Donald Trump go home.” Ireland doesn’t want you, Donny boy. Erin go bragh. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.