Opinion

Tom Collins: One more victory for Trump in United States of Disorder

Tom Collins

Tom Collins

Tom Collins is an Irish News columnist and former editor of the newspaper.

President Donald Trump, on board Air Force One, gestures while watching a live television broadcast of the senate confirmation vote of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Picture by Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP
President Donald Trump, on board Air Force One, gestures while watching a live television broadcast of the senate confirmation vote of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Picture by Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP President Donald Trump, on board Air Force One, gestures while watching a live television broadcast of the senate confirmation vote of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Picture by Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

One of the slightly queasy aspects of US-Irish relations is the annual St Patrick’s fest when the river running through Chicago is dyed green and Irish politicians, of all hues of green and orange, fly west to pay homage at the White House.

We fool ourselves into thinking it is a sign of the close bond that exists between the US and Ireland. The reality is very different. From the perspective of American politicians, including the president, it is almost all about US politics and keeping the Irish-American vote.

“All politics is local,” Tip O’Neill said in his first election campaign in 1935. He rose to be one of the most influential Irish-American politicians and speaker of the House of Representatives.

O’Neill, who died in 1994, believed those elected to office were there to represent the interests of the marginalised. As his maxim shows, he believed your constituents should be your motivating force, and that politicians should put their interests at the heart of decision-making.

He was a party man – he came from the Democrats’ liberal wing – but he was also a skilful negotiator who was prepared to do a deal. And he commanded respect from across the floor of the House of Representatives.

He could be one of the awkward squad, and was not afraid to speak truth to power – even if the individual in power happened to be from his own party.

O’Neill was an implacable opponent of Lyndon B Johnson’s policy in Vietnam – a policy that condemned thousands of young Americans to death in a war the president knew he had no chance of winning; a policy that stained the US’s reputation in Asia, and which fuelled the dictatorships America wanted to stop.

He took on Nixon and Reagan too – both of whom were responsible in different ways for the cancer that has been eating away at the US’s body politic.

Quite what O’Neill would have made of the present incumbent in the White House is anybody’s guess. One thing though would be certain. He would not be drowning the shamrock with Donald Trump and neither should we.

If there was ever a time to put Ireland’s special relationship with the United States on the back burner, it is now.

The shocking events that have been played out in Washington this past fortnight – resulting in the elevation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court – show, without a shadow of doubt, the corruption that has undermined the very principles on which the United States was founded.

The US constitution begins with high-sounding sentiments articulated in the name of “the People”. Entrusted to Congress is the responsibility to “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”.

Justice, tranquillity and welfare – no-where to be seen in this United States of Disorder presided over by Trump.

When it came down to a vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination – the US Senate sided with a discredited judge who has a questionable record on the rights of women, workers, native Americans and members of the LGBT community. And they added to the harm endured by Christine Blasey Ford – the woman who accused Kavanaugh of attempting to rape her when they were teenagers, which he denies.

Members of the Supreme Court hold office for life. They need to be people of impeccable reputation.

Until he dies, Kavanaugh will have a disproportionate influence on decisions affecting more than 300 million men, women and children in the US – and on future generations. All will be subject to judgments taken on the basis of a narrow and pernicious view of the world and how things should be.

Trump now has a placeman where it matters most.

The nomination of such a divisive figure – even before the allegations about his private life came out – was part of Trump’s strategy. He uses disruption to get his way. The chaos is not a by-product of his actions – it is the purpose. And it works.

He has used it to get his way on North American trade, on climate change, on Nato and on the Supreme Court nomination. He will use it to wriggle out of his complicity with Russia over the ‘stolen’ presidential election, and the consequences of the Mueller investigation.

Post-Kavanaugh there are those who hope liberal America will galvanise and pay Trump back at the mid-term elections. There is even talk of the House of Representatives – once so ably led by Tip O’Neill – impeaching the newest member of the Supreme Court. Don’t bet on it. Rather than being the high watermark of Trump’s presidency, I fear this is only the end of the first act.