'Time to wake-up and try to address the justifiable anger of the people'

It was the forgotten people who elected Donald Trump to the most powerful political office in the free world. Irish officials would do well to heed such warnings, writes Political Editor Daniel McConnell

AWFUL, seismic, disastrous, shock, dramatic.

Just some of the terms used yesterday on the potential impact Donald Trump’s election as president of the US will have not just domestically but around the world.

Much like when George W Bush was re-elected in 2004, some of the painful expressions of disgust on social media here were so over the top as to be ridiculous.

For us here in Ireland, maybe we should all calm down a little and realise that a Trump victory was the more probable outcome for months.

In all honesty, there should be little surprise that Trump won given how our own election went in February and also in the wake of the Brexit vote in the UK on June 23.

Both of those events should have told political observers that such is the disenchantment with the establishment that any result was possible.

Here, for the first time since the foundation of the State, the combined vote of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil was less than 50%.

Fine Gael’s ill-judged campaign slogan, “Let’s keep the recovery going”, typified just how out of touch the party has gotten from being in power.

In Britain, traditional Labour heartlands voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU.

Establishment politics on a global scale is in crisis and Trump’s election was a victory for those who wanted to give the American elites a bloody nose.

Bottom line, working class and some parts of middle class America elected Donald Trump.

Black people voted for him, women voted for him, and, dare I say it, some disenchanted liberals even voted for him.

Such a beautiful and important evening! The forgotten man and woman will never be forgotten again. We will all come together as never before

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 9, 2016

So while for weeks, the media elites, the political elites, and the liberal intelligentsia of America and Europe were hoping and praying for a Clinton win, the American people, the plain people of America, had another idea.

“Politicians are all talk, no action,” said the then candidate in one of his campaign speeches a few short weeks ago.

Unlike Hilary Clinton, who is the greatest establishment candidate to run in living memory, Trump, the tax-dodging billionaire, played himself time and time again as the friend of the forgotten.

“The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer,” he said in his surprisingly inclusive victory speech early yesterday.

All the way through the campaign, Trump didn’t play by the rules.

Billing himself as a non-politician, Trump played nastier and uglier than anyone ever before, like the perfect WWE pantomime villain.

Typified by his “Crooked Hillary” mantra, he didn’t play politics with the campaign — he played showbiz.

Journalistic colleagues from Ireland who have travelled across the US to cover the election were warning in their conversations weeks ago that Trump was winning.

Polls were saying Hillary, but writers’ anecdotal, first-hand reportage was saying Trump.

Not for the first time, the polling industry and media punditry disgraced themselves in not allowing themselves to believe a Trump win was possible.

Even some of the shocked and appalled reactions to the win yesterday from highly respected commentators typified how out of touch many were.

Fine Gael’s ill-judged campaign slogan typified just how out of touch the party has gotten from being in power.

But some of our more respected politicians, too, allowed the emotion of the day overrule their better judgement.

“Like many Irish people, and people all around the world, I went to bed last night feeling apprehensive, and woke up to realise that a nightmare had become a reality,” said Labour leader Brendan Howlin.

With politics more fractured here in Ireland than at any time in living memory, the Trump victory is a stark wake-up call to those who feel they have a birth-given right to govern.

Politics has become dangerously disconnected from ordinary people’s lives.

The failure of successive governments to contain or address the housing crisis, which is now a decade old, and the equally scandalous failure to provide a fit-for-purpose health system are the two great social injustices of our time.

Also, the legitimate angst felt by many over the socialisation of tens of billions of banking debt has done irrevocable damage to public confidence in politics in Ireland.

The failure of the establishment to hear the outcry of the Irish people on water charges back in 2014 has also had deep and lasting ramifications on public policy.

Just yesterday, the Dáil heard debate on the bill which is seeking to keep water in public ownership, the latest twist in a saga which has beguiled Fine Gael for more than two-and-a-half years.

The people are angry — and not just in Ireland, Britain, and the US. All across Europe, disenchantment with the status quo is the order of the day.

The establishment has allowed a hollowing out of the middle classes in the past 20 years to the point where young people can’t buy homes and will be left with little or no pensions.

The increased prevalence of zero-hour contracts is yet another vestige of an increasingly divided country.

This disconnect, felt by many people, is driven by a strong sense that the elites and establishment have forgotten them.

It was the forgotten people of America who elected Trump to the most powerful political office in the free world.

So rather than being shocked, maybe the elites across the world should finally wake up and try and address the justifiable anger of the people.