Is our political system vulnerable to someone like Trump?

Is our political system vulnerable to populist politicians like Trump?
The support for Sinn Fein, with their populist and utterly moronic economic policies which would hurt the poor and vulnerable and working people, was and is alarming and shows just how easily led so many people are. The move of many of their supporters away to even more populist and delusional racist parties is even more alarming. With that in mind, and seeing what's happening in the USA, how vulnerable are our democratic institutions to attack from within?

If, for example, a racist populist Trump supporter was elected President could they refuse to sign any legislation into law unless their agenda was followed?
Seeing labour cosying up to Sinn Fein makes me believe that, unfortunately, they will cosy up to anyone. Would they and others form part of a populist coalition in which an even more populist party is the tail wagging the dog?

I think we could be vulnerable to a well organised and well funded campaign (with lots of mis-information). It's always easy to snipe at those in power if you've never had the responsibility. Alot of the populist candidates could be stopped at local level. If you follow the path of most politicians they start at local council level. They have no responsibility and call on someone else to fix things. They also pass useless motions (Palestine flag over council office, banning Netanyahoo from the city etc). I'm sure People before Logic would be found out quickly if they were given a budget and had to take responsibility for it. They would then have to explain to the constituents why there isn't free houses for everyone, why houses haven't been built.

It is worrying that Hutch came so close to being a TD.

It would be naive and arrogant to assume we couldn't elect a populist. For example, were Conor McGregor to find a way to run for President, he would probably get a vote in 6 figures. Remember as well we have elected plenty of convicted criminals in the past.

What it probably needs is a catalyst, an event that the far right (or left) could gather behind.

President in Ireland can refuse to sign legislation by referring it to the Supreme Court but not sure what would happen if he failed to follow their directive.

To answer the question: I certainly hope so!

Slightly more seriously, there is nothing new about populism in our political system - in the broadest sense of the word, that is. Some of us are old enough to remember FF under Jack Lynch getting an overall majority by promising to get rid of car tax and domestic dwelling rates - or something like that. And we all know how well that ended...

Since then we've had no end of election promises based on financial inducements - usually based on a magic formula of taking it from one hand and giving back with the other.

The world has changed a lot in the last few years - trust in "the system" is at a very low ebb with a large vacuum to be filled.

I would like to see, not so much a move to the right - as a move away from some of the daft public policies of recent years, many/most of which are driven by tax-payer funded NGO activism. It's hard to believe just how much influence some of these groups have on the overall Government approach in the areas of education, social policy, energy generation/extreme environmentalism, gender ideology, migration, welfare, taxation crime/justice etc. The heavy defeat of last years referendum is just one example of this - all of the mainstream media had it passing with ease.

Part of it is down to our "best-boy-in-the-class-ism" - always trying to be seen to be ahead of the pack in these kinds of areas. We just can't help embarrassing ourselves...

To give just one example....we're importing vast amounts of gas - yet we pull stunts like this.

Why are NGOs like Social Justice Ireland and Trocaire getting involved with such campaigns?


Just to add, there's no shortage of "mis-information" coming from official sources (plenty of examples recently). And there's nothing racist about wanting some sort of control over immigration - legal and otherwise. If reasonable people with reasonable concerns aren't listened to, unreasonable people will fill the vacuum - which is probably what's happening right now. (Although recent announcements have shown that Government might be waking up to some of the concerns.)