Opinion

Patrick Murphy: North America now resembles the North of Ireland on a grand scale

Patrick Murphy

Patrick Murphy

Patrick Murphy is an Irish News columnist and former director of Belfast Institute for Further and Higher Education.

Donald Trump's brand of 'Grand Old Duke of York' politics has echoes in Northern Ireland. Picture by AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
Donald Trump's brand of 'Grand Old Duke of York' politics has echoes in Northern Ireland. Picture by AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin Donald Trump's brand of 'Grand Old Duke of York' politics has echoes in Northern Ireland. Picture by AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

SO farewell then, Donald Trump, would-be dictator, failed wall-builder and advocate of bleach as a vaccine.

A figure of fun for many in this country (with the exception of the DUP) Trump vacates the White House in disgrace and leaves a legacy of division and bitterness across the US.

But as we watch events across the Atlantic, it is clear that while they are not identical to our recent history, they show some remarkable similarities.

These include the role of political and religious extremism in fostering division, rewriting history as it happens and, most remarkably, violent protest against the state by those who proclaim the greatest loyalty to it. North America now resembles the North of Ireland on a grand scale.

The mix of religion and right-wing politics is common to both states. The religious certainty of salvation in the next life appears to fuel a sense of political arrogance and intransigence in this one.

It drives a distorted form of patriotism, which elevates claimed love of country above loyalty to that country's democratically elected representatives. The government is often seen as anti-patriotic.

It has been a recurrent theme here since the Curragh Mutiny in 1914, when unionist-sympathising British army officers threatened to disobey military orders rather than implement Westminster's democratically agreed home rule for Ireland.

It happened again in loyalist opposition to the Anglo-Irish Agreement, the Good Friday Agreement and in the flags protest at Belfast City Hall.

Like US right-wing groups, loyalists here strive towards an idealised perception of society, often campaigning for 'freedom', while advocating racial or ethnic superiority at home and aggression abroad.

The concept of making America 'great' again is reflected in 'Great' Britain, illustrating a common ambition of imperial domination.

Britain's imperial dominance has now been replaced by the USA's. Since 1945, for example, the US has intervened in more than 70 countries through invasion, overthrowing governments, or interfering in elections.

Trump was simply following in that tradition, but he went too far in trying to overthrow the incoming US government. Self-defined patriotism gives you the right (and maybe even the duty) to subvert democracy at home and abroad.

Although US right-wing extremism is still growing, here it has become pre-occupied with the easy money of drug-dealing and gangsterism. It may take a border poll to give it new life.

The extreme right claims that God is on their side. The UVF motto is "For God and Ulster". (Hopefully, God does not confuse Ulster with the Six Counties.)

US Christian movements usually steered clear of electoral politics until Ronald Reagan offered them a heady mix of anti-communism and less government involvement in society.

Trump has continued in that vein, with many fundamentalist Christians believing that he has been sent by God (which raises the issue of whether God might not have found something more useful to do).

The late Ian Paisley also used religion as an electoral spur for his supporters and a source of abuse for opponents.

Although his personal life was certainly different from Trump's, he too fused his personality with the cause he advocated, so that there could only be one leader for ever, as Peter Robinson found out.

Both Trump and Paisley preyed on popular dissatisfaction with low wages, de-industrialisation and the privatisation of public services, but neither man addressed the social and economic inequality which they exploited. Both incited their followers to violence and then abandoned them.

In the end, both were deserted by their colleagues: Paisley because he entered government; Trump because he tried to subvert it.

But there is one major difference between the US and here.

Although America is a deeply divided society, no-one has so far suggested power-sharing as a solution. Their aim is to unite both sides together.

Here, we institutionalised our division. Which is why no-one in the US is looking to us for a solution.

After all, Stormont maintains more walls than Trump ever built.