While I was in Dublin recently, I sat down with Hugh Linehan of The Irish Times’ Inside Politics podcast to talk about Irish and American politics. We start with a question that gets asked frequently about Ireland: Why hasn’t right-wing populism taken off there?
Across much of Europe and the English-speaking world, the populist right has become a major political force. Donald Trump reshaped the Republican Party in the United States. Brexit transformed British politics. Marine Le Pen’s party has become a central player in France. Far-right or right-populist parties have broken through in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, and elsewhere.
Ireland, so far, has been different.
There are anti-immigration activists, small right-wing parties and some independent politicians trying to occupy that space. But Ireland has not had the kind of durable, mass right-populist breakthrough that has become familiar elsewhere.
Hugh and I talk through some of the possible reasons why. Ireland is not living through the same kind of decline narrative that has fueled populism in other countries. In many ways, the country is more prosperous and globally successful than it has ever been. Its experience with immigration is also more recent and distinct from countries like the United States, Britain, and France. And Sinn Féin may occupy some of the political terrain that, in other countries, has been claimed by the populist right: nationalist, anti-establishment, rooted in working-class and rural communities — but on the left.
From there, we get into the bigger Irish story: the country’s remarkable economic rise, its dependence on a small number of large American companies for corporate tax revenue, the strange politics of neutrality and defense, and what it means for a small country to rely so heavily on the kindness, or at least the continued cooperation, of larger powers.
Then Hugh turns the tables and asks me about the United States: gerrymandering, the Voting Rights Act, the two-party system, primaries, Trump, and where the root of America’s political dysfunction lies.
It was a fun and wide-ranging conversation about two very different countries that share some important history.
