Caitriona Perry - Washington calling

Here’s a question: how did it come to pass that out of a 319-million strong population, Donald Trump is one of two candidates for American president?

Someone well placed to answer this question is Caitiona Perry, RTÉ’s Washington correspondent and bureau chief.

“Life hasn’t been fixed well enough by the politicians that have been in there for the last number of years, so why not try somebody else?” says Caitriona.

“They look at someone like Donald Trump, who on paper has a very successful empire built up, and so they think if he was able to do that for himself ... then he could do something like that for America as well. When he talks, he does have some very effective catchphrases that do appeal to people who are just struggling, who are just sick of the same old status quo, who think the way decisions are made in America doesn’t work for them, that Washington DC is very, very far away from their own lives.

“When you speak to Donald Trump voters, they’re able to rationalise away the things that maybe, to an Irish ear, seem very controversial and offensive,” continues Caitriona.

“They’re able to rationalise that away by saying: ‘OK, well I’m not voting for him to be my friend or someone that I want to have over to my house for dinner, I’m voting for him to run my country.’ And so they can override the more unpleasant element of it for the leadership qualities that they see in him.”

Journey to Washington

Caitriona hails from Knocklyon in Dublin and went to school locally in Sancta Maria College in Rathfarnham. She always wanted to be a journalist: “Since as far back as I can remember really, I guess since I knew what the job was. I’ve always loved writing, storytelling, communicating – I was just fascinated by news, and how the world turned.”

Caitriona studied journalism in DCU and from there went straight into Newstalk, which had been airing for just a week at the time. After two and a half years, Caitriona moved to Today FM where she was the courts correspondent, before moving into the role of acting deputy head of news. Fast forward three years to 2007 and she had joined RTÉ. While working there full-time, she also completed a part-time Master’s in International Relations in DCU. In February 2014 she became Washington correspondent.

If there is one word to describe Caitriona, it’s “busy”. Is this any surprise given her beat “as such is the whole of the United States, and pretty much the whole of the western hemisphere”.

She has reported from Canada, Haiti and Cuba, as well as the US, and she reports for all of the various RTÉ platforms – radio, television, online and on social media, “so it’s pretty full on, pretty non-stop”.

Given the sheer breadth of the region Caitriona is covering, it’s not just the reporting that keeps her busy, it’s the travelling across the States too. Caitriona spends a lot of time in planes, trains, cars and airports.

“This week I was in Las Vegas for the third presidential debate, and that’s a five-hour flight from DC. So when you factor in the time to get to and from the airport, clear security, a flight coming home last night was delayed by 2.5 hours, you’ve already done a full day of work and then you spend another 10 or 11 hours trying to get home again, so you become very expert in utilising that time. Most of the flights nowadays have Wi-Fi on board so you can work while you’re in the sky, which is great, or if you’re in airports waiting you become very adept at what is the absolute minimum time to turn up to an airport and make your plane.”

We get the impression Caitriona doesn’t get a lot of sleep.

“Whenever you’re doing Morning Ireland that does diminish the amount of sleep that you can get because you’re not getting to bed until about 2.30am but you’re still getting up at whatever time, 6.30am, 7am, or even earlier if you’ve got a plane to catch, so when it’s busy you don’t get a lot of sleep. You just try and catch up on it at the weekends ... I’ll sleep at the end of November – for now it’s just a case of getting the job done.”

Caitriona feels the rise of Trump is part of a trend which is being seen around the world – “a little bit in the most recent Irish election, in the Brexit vote, and across Europe in terms of people just being very frustrated with the traditional political system and they want change. The great recession happened and although on paper the countries are recovering and their economics are recovering, that is not being felt by the vast majority of people. They’re still struggling to pay their bills and pay their mortgages, they still aren’t at the point where they can have the nice holidays they maybe had 10 years ago, or upgrade their car, so people blame establishment politicians for that.”

Caitriona also says there are very big drugs problems in many parts of America.

“On a local level, people just see the horror that reeks and feel again that nothing is being done about it.”

Has Caitriona seen support for Trump change over the course of the campaign?

“He’s kind of maintained the same core support throughout – from the primaries through to becoming the official nominee, to now, and that’s one of his big problems in terms of can he be elected because he’s not growing his support base?” says Caitriona. “He appeals immediately to a good chunk of the population – in and around 40%, but he hasn’t been able to build on that, and the longer it goes on, you do see more and more establishment people just deciding that actually they can’t hold their nose and vote for him ... there are people now this close who have held with him the whole time and now just decide they can’t. Otherwise, his core support base has been very, very loyal to him.”

There’s no doubt it has been an unusual election campaign – and certainly not the most positive or uplifting one.

“It’s a case of who they’re voting against rather than who they’re voting for, so that’s quite remarkable,” says Caitriona.

“Usually in an election like this, you’re looking for someone who inspires you, and who you want to be your leader, whereas this time round people are saying it’s quite the opposite – it’s who they’re trying to keep out of the office.”