Opinion: glasshouse repairs are needed before I throw any stones

I’m not really in a position to say anything about Joe Biden and Donald Trump and the appalling situation where one of these two men will hold the most powerful and onerous position in global politics.

You see, I had my own 'senior moment' this week, so I need to put down any pebbles I may have collected and firstly attend to my own glass house.

In a relatively short news article regarding the Green Party leadership contest in this week’s paper, I made two errors of fact.

Firstly, I wrongly asserted that Pippa Hackett had been appointed to the Seanad in 2020. That was plain wrong - she was elected on the agricultural panel.

In a contest containing no fewer than 25 candidates, she gained fourth-most first preference votes and comfortably claimed one of the 11 seats on offer.

Contestable

I have no idea how or why I misremembered this and under-represented Pippa’s ability to gain votes - an important ability for a party leader to have.

The second error was where I misnamed Senator Róisín Garvey as Pauline Garvey. Róisín is contesting the deputy leadership of the Green Party.

I understand this one - I mixed her first name up with her party and Seanad colleague Pauline O’Reilly, who recently contested the European elections. To both Pippa and Róisín, I offer my apologies.

When my errors were pointed out to me, I had to have a talk with myself. The opinions I share here are, of course, contestable, but I don’t generally make factual errors.

Or, at least, I haven’t been making them that often up to now.

It may be that I can’t trust my memory in the way I once would have

It may be that I can’t trust my memory in the way I once would have - there’s going to have to be more thorough fact-checking before committing to print.

I’m 58, so have 20 years on Donald Trump and an extra three on Joe Biden.

The debate on Thursday night showed two men way past their best and one of them seems certain to be the US president for the next four years. It’s a little bit scary.

Publicly, leading Democrats are strongly supporting Biden, but it may be that, privately, he is being counselled to reconsider his candidacy.

He may well be fully capable of doing the job - his hustings on Friday was a return to form - but if the American public believe he is past it, staying in the race will elect Donald Trump.

If the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee is a clear and present danger to American democracy and global stability (if that phrase isn’t oxymoronic in 2024), then the focus has to be on ensuring the Democrats have a candidate who can and will beat him. Right now, that doesn’t look likely.

No lack of respect

The second reason my lapses are unfortunate is that they might give the impression of a lack of respect, from me or the paper I write for, toward the Green Party.

I always endeavour to give every party and every candidate a level of respect that acknowledges the importance of public service for all of us.

One of the key tactics to radicalise the politics of a nation is to create cynicism towards politics

I wouldn’t do what Pippa Hackett, Roderic O’Gorman, Róisín Garvey, Neasa Hourigan or Ossian Smyth do.

Our public representatives are expected to be on call 24/7, ready to listen to requests for advice, representation or assistance wherever they are and to listen to criticism - some valid, some vicious - without reacting.

One of the key tactics to radicalise the politics of a nation is to create cynicism towards politics.

“They’re all the same” is the refrain that the far right and far left will invoke.

In the UK, Reform - the latest vehicle being driven by Nigel Farage - depicts the Conservatives and Labour as a particularly useless two-headed coin.

The far left says the very same and counsels against supporting Keir Starmer and Labour.

Not voting will, in the UK general election, be unlikely to change the election result, only to define the margin of victory for Labour.

In the US presidential election, it’s very different, at least in the handful of swing states that will decide this election.

If you live in California or New York, which will overwhelmingly vote Democrat, your vote doesn’t really matter.

The same is true if you are in a strongly red Republican-voting state such as Montana or Texas.

However, in swing states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, every vote will count. Florida and Ohio, so crucial 24 years ago, have swung towards the Republicans, but Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina are now in play.

Third wheel

With the USA operating a first-past-the-post system within each state, the presence of a third-party candidate can be decisive.

We saw Ross Perot take votes away from George H Bush in 1992, when Bush was seeking re-election. Perot won almost 20 million votes, mostly from people leaning Republican, which effectively handed the presidency to Bill Clinton.

Eight years later, Clinton’s vice-president Al Gore ran against George Bush. In a tight election, it all came down to Florida. Bush was declared the victor by only 537 votes, in a state where Green candidate Ralph Nader won almost 100,000 votes.

This time round, the wild card in the race is Robert Kennedy Jr. He is the nephew of JFK and was only 14 when his father was assassinated, just as he seemed to have taken control of the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 1968.

Despite having views that are much closer to Trump than Biden - particularly around vaccines and geopolitics, Ukraine in particular - Kennedy is likely to take votes from Biden.

He has no chance of winning, but could decide the presidency. And with it, perhaps the fate of Ukraine, which this week signed a security pact with the EU and made a significant step toward eventual accession to membership itself.

Biden might seem like his faculties are not what they were, but he is an ally of the EU and has continued to support Ukraine. This US election matters to Europe and to us, more than most of its predecessors.

Chambers takes control of purse strings

This week also saw Jack Chambers appointed Minister for Finance.

I won’t lie, watching a 33-year-old accepting the key economic portfolio accompanied by our 37-year-old Taoiseach didn’t make me feel any younger or fresher.

Chambers, a Dublin West TD, will now be holding the Government’s purse strings alongside another Dub, Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Paschal Donohoe.

That is unlikely to make it any easier for Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue to extract extra funding for farming in the upcoming budget.

There is an expectation that it will be a giveaway budget, but it’s more likely money will be prioritised into taxation reductions and the key political battlegrounds of health and housing.

There surely has to be a push to get the National Children’s Hospital open before the year’s end. Childcare is another area that affects a very significant proportion of the population.

Chambers and Donohoe will probably need to be convinced there are votes attached to any money sent the way of farming.