Ireland is no country for populist strongmen

COULD it happen here? One day soon, could this country succumb to a strongman populist leader flogging snake oil as an antidote to anger and disillusion, asks Michael Clifford.

The election of Donald Trump implies that anything is possible when it comes to the maintenance of democracy as we know it. His campaign was replete with un-American themes, and thick with insults. Yet all of that was apparently discounted because he purveyed a brand of change which, while fraudulent, was also irresistible to half the electorate.

His presidency will be compelling. He will have to dilute much of the agenda on which he ran, but unless he abandons it altogether there will be major ramifications for large swathes of the USA, and the world beyond.