The National Party

Deleted User wrote: »

Lol at the "you are against us if you don't wholly go along with me" whataboutery.

It's attitudes like the one in your post which alienates moderate people into getting into a discussion with you.

Though it's always been in play in politics to some degree as it springs from basic human nature, of late the more recently imported from America binary approach and even the very labels of "left" and "right" along American lines has infected our political and social discourse. In extremis and on both "sides" you could be talking with American university students. The current Irish "right" and "left" ape their transatlantic fellows and the same buzzwords are in play. This is even more evident on social media.

osarusan wrote: »

We have always been a country of moderate, centrist parties, and I think that centrism stops any parties on the extremes from making any real inroads. If the political centre did skew significantly one way or the other, then a space would open up for a party to react to that.

The fact that these parties don't emerge suggests to me that the space simply isn't there to any real degree, and that people (on posters on here) are seriously exaggerating the effects of the extremes (left and right) on the political landscape.

I'd agree. The Irish are centrist by nature, at least in the sense of being not too reactionary towards the status quo of the time. The "rebel Irish" meme is largely a myth, certainly on home ground. We're more a "be grand", more reactive than proactive and more local than national a culture as a general thing. Much of this I would say was down to a small not exactly economically strong population and one that has often looked outwards more than inwards for guidance, even authority. When we finally threw out the English(and it was hardly a done deal until it was) and put all our woes on them in the aftermath, we were quick to look to the Vatican to replace them as an authority and in turn attached our woes to them when they left. We were also a very homogenous society when considering the notion of "Irishness".

Could this middle of the road centrist culture shift one way or the other? Well Ireland has changed and changed rapidly and for the better for most in a very short time. 30 years, a generation essentially and with those changes there will be increased pressures on the edges. The demographics have changed in a big way where what is it something like one in five living here are not originally from here. That will bring new challenges and forces to bear. The hangover from Covid and a possible downturn in economics will be another. Both can be fertile ground for conservative and right wing politics to grow. On singular issues at least. We rightfully patted ourselves on the back for the Repeal and SSM votes, but it's easy to ignore that a third of voters were against both and quite likely the same third. The 04 citizenship vote was a landslide in favour of shutting down that loophole.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Violence, white supremacy, etc. are not products of living in an open democratic society, they are products of people being ignorant bigoted arseholes

Ignorant bigoted arseholes like the poor will always be with us and in every society. That they can have a voice is the price we pay for open democratic societies. Censorship never works, only by shining a light on extreme views can we hope to reduce them. Plus censorship can have consequences. Unless you were a rare outlier, and percentages would be against you, the "you" of say 1950's Ireland would have quite likely been a White supremacist to one degree or other, would have been dead set against divorce, SSM, Gay rights and abortion. You're not an "ignorant bigoted arsehole" today only because your society isn't and that happened because a small number of those rare outliers went against the tide and censorship and their culture and changed things for the better. The vast majority of people's attitudes and beliefs are like water, they fill the container they're placed in.

For all the talk of nazis it's easy for us to forget that the actual nazis turned one of the most educated, advanced and civilised nations in Europe into a horror show in not much more than a decade.

Brian? wrote: »

Irish people, as an electorate, are wonderfully progressive and increasingly so.

And very recently so. That's what too many seem to ignore or like to forget. As I said above if this were not so long ago we were almost the complete opposite. We were one of the most regressive and conservative nations and cultures in Europe. Even "Catholic" France and Italy had decriminalised homosexuality well over a century before us.

My worry is that this progressivness is starting to drag out the regressive elements on the right and they are actually being listened to and not dismissed.

And where are they being listened to and not dismissed outside of a few eejits on social media? The titular National Party are only discussed in the mainstream as a joke or a boogyman and have near zero electoral support.

Hey, maybe I spend too much time on boards reading anti traveller/immigration/abortion/trans rights posts. Maybe boards isn't representative of the Irish population. Maybe my worry isn't that much of an actual worry.

Well if we go by votes on those subjects that were put to one, in the cases of abortion and SSM around a third of the Irish electorate were against them on the day. On Immigration 80% voted to restrict one aspect of it to non EU residents. In the last presidential election Casey went from last in the polls to second based on comments about Travellers. Going further back the 95 Divorce referendum scraped through by the skin of its teeth, barely one percent. Though the latter was a vote held at the tail end of old Ireland so not very applicable if at all(the previous vote didn't get through).

As far as the future goes, who knows? Being "progressive" certainly isn't a given. As far as all the countries and cultures on earth it's not even a majority in many cases. On immigration and multiculturalism, unless we end up being a singular the exception proves the rule case, it will bring challenges and issues like in every western nation that's tried it and that will likely impact politically to some degree. As settled society becomes ever more different than Traveller society there will continue to be challenges there too. Even in my lifetime I've seen those divisions and suspicions on both sides increase not decrease. Abortion is pretty much a done deal in many ways and can't see that becoming any sort of political football, unless the culture markedly shifts. Same for Gay rights and SSM. The Trans question is relatively new and has garnered quite the pushback and not just from conservatives and the right, there's quite the backlash from feminist thinkers who would be on the left of things. So that's up in the air.

It's hardly hysterical to express concern though. You haven't suggested I'm hysterical, but others have

I certainly didn't anyway. I did say the thought process and fear about the NP was hysterical in many ways and I would stand by that. The boogyman is not to be feared, it's the measured and sensible on the surface shifts that are.