Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
A NEAR TOTAL preoccupation with the unpredictable twists and turns of the race for the Áras has led this writer astray in recent weeks. Rather than having one eye incessantly honed in on happenings in the land of my birth as usual, my political antennae have been firmly fixed on the man who could have been Uachtarán na hÉireann and the two women who now remain in the mix to succeed Michael D Higgins.
This was obvious negligence given how fast things move in Donald Trump’s America. Love him or loathe him, the 79-year-old 45th and 47th President of the United States is possessed of an extraordinary, frenetic energy. One who often interrogates him and has consequently earned his contempt is CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. Her comments on the Trading Secrets podcast are fascinating.
“He [Trump] does not sleep… I had this source who said, ‘You never want to be on Air Force One on a trip.’ And I said, ‘Why? You’d think you’d want to be in the axis of power, close to Trump.’” The source continued, “he doesn’t sleep on these trips, and you’re going to Asia or something, and that’s like the only time you’re going to sleep before you go on this trip, but Trump is just always up and talking.” According to Collins’ contact, he actually wakes members of his staff who are attempting to rest in order to bounce ideas off them.
Let’s play catch up with the US.
Globally, at least at the moment, President Trump is basking in the glow of the tentative agreement reached to embark upon what will be an obstacle-laden path to peace in the Middle East. For the besieged innocents in Gaza whose lives have been uprooted and eternally altered, the evidently imminent cessation of hostilities has to be a relief.
Regrettably, yet truthfully, there is ample reason to be sceptical that peace will last because of what its terms entail for Benjamin Netanyahu – a resumption of a corruption trial that could result in his imprisonment and an election he will probably lose, badly – and for Hamas – disarmament and banishment to the periphery. All that those directly affected in Israel and Palestine have is hope, however, as a horrified world collectively holds its breath and crosses its fingers.
Trump and his inner circle will surely see this as a boost to his pursuit of a Nobel Prize and other accolades. Having garnered the big headline he sought, it is legitimate to question whether the US will live up to the promises that have been made and the assurances that have been granted. If the follow through is lacking, this fledgling effort seems destined to fail. Two circumstances might augur positively, though. One is the president’s permanently burning desire to confound his critics and achieve a feat that eluded his predecessors in the White House.
More nefariously, a second is the degree to which this administration’s geopolitical objectives and personal financial goals are inextricably and unprecedentedly intertwined. Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s close friend and son-in-law respectively, are real estate “wheeler dealers” turned untrained diplomats. Gaza will have to be rebuilt. Plus, their various enterprises already have investments in the region. There is money to be made. And presumably, war isn’t good for the construction business.
At home, President Trump’s attorney general Pam Bondi was combatively dismissive of the lines of inquiry relative to Jeffrey Epstein and more flowing from a US Senate committee. Trump’s nemesis, ex-FBI director James Comey, faces trial in a federal court on charges so devoid of merit that the prosecutor in situ, Erik Siebert, declined to press them. Siebert resigned under pressure from the top and was replaced by Lindsey Halligan, a Trump loyalist and a lawyer who has scant experience of criminal practice.
Undaunted by the claims of his ardent foes that he is a wannabe fascist and despite adverse rulings from the judiciary, the commander-in-chief has sent National Guard troops into multiple major American cities, with plans afoot to establish a military presence in additional alleged trouble spots to purportedly eliminate what he has deemed “the enemy within.” In this vein, Trump has threatened to arrest Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson for asserting that they don’t want soldiers doing the jobs of police officers in their state and city.
Contemporaneously, the federal government is mired in a shutdown. Republicans and Democrats are equally convinced that they are right and their opponents are wrong, and that the other side will ultimately suffer politically. Without delving into the nitty-gritty, the two parties appear to foolishly discount the entirely plausible scenario that the popular sentiment will be “a plague on all your houses” and the fact that it is in their joint interest to get the show back on the road as soon as is feasible.
Let’s take a minute after that whistle-stop tour of relentlessly unfolding developments.
Now, what is the broader political picture? It is fair to say that, as they pray that the just-brokered ceasefire stays in place and that there will be a breakthrough in stalled negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, most international stakeholders look on disbelievingly. They expect that President Trump and the GOP will surely reap what they have sown and get their comeuppance from a beleaguered US electorate in next November’s midterms.
Indeed, if history is any guide, Democrats should do very well. Conversely, the party’s struggles, frequently chronicled here, mount. Lately, numerous opinion surveys on some key issues reveal what journalist Andrew Prokop aptly identifies as “a dynamic where voters say Trump has gone ‘too far’ and even that they disapprove… but also say they still prefer him to Democrats on it.”
Further, progressives anticipating a repeat of 2018, the halfway mark of Trump 1.0 when Republicans lost 40 seats and control of the US House of Representatives, will derive no encouragement from a comparative examination of aggregated polling conducted in October 2017 and October 2025. Thirteen months before those midterms seven years ago, Democrats’ favourability averaged 39% and Republicans trailed by 12 percentage points.
Today, at the same remove, Republicans are at 41% and Democrats are six percentage points behind. The latter grouping must only move the dial slightly to prevail in light of the tiny size of the GOP House majority. Yet it is objectively surprising that they aren’t faring better in the midst of this undeniably controversial, disruptive and polarising regime. Democrats need a cure for their political ineptitude, and they need it fast.
Meanwhile, President Trump powers ahead, whether to shock or to adulation, without pause or rest. God bless America.
Larry Donnelly is a Boston lawyer, a law lecturer at the University of Galway and a political columnist with The Journal.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say