Silent private sector may soon throw up an Irish Trump

THE TRUMP EFFECT A SAVAGE JOURNEY TO THE HEART OF THE AMERICAN DREAM

LAST Monday, my sister Bridget, the radical socialist in the family, who recently retired to Ireland after 40 years’ working as a trauma nurse alongside black and Latino staff in some of the toughest American hospitals, flew back across the Atlantic to vote for Donald Trump.

You can read her reasons elsewhere in the paper. But they boil down to James Carville’s advice to Bill Clinton: it’s the economy, stupid.

My sister’s decision to back Trump shocked me at first. But reflecting on her reasons has forced me to face four hard truths.

First, social democratic parties are no longer connecting with the majority of working people who are struggling with two challenges — the convulsive changes posed by corporations who can close in one country and open in another, and the cultural problems of mass immigration.

Clinton Democrats were so busy pushing the gender and identity politics so loved by the liberal media elites, they failed to focus on the fact that 40 years of globalisation and recession has ripped not just the blue collar, but the whole shirt, from the backs of American workers.

Economic change cut their pay checks, destroyed their meagre pensions, shut down their factories, shops and towns. The result was a perfect storm of misery waiting for a Messiah.

Trump is no Messiah, just a brilliant communicator. And unlike Clinton, he could talk simply to the forgotten and frustrated workers of America.

The liberal elites mocked his elliptical sentences, but his discursive style drew in worried people like the musings of a good, evangelical preacher.

Second, these same liberal elites, like RTE staff who have been conducting a wake since they heard the result, only add to workingclass alienation.

At best, educated liberals lack empathy with the blue-collar working class; at worst, they revile them as rednecks and racists.

Blue collars are well aware of this class contempt. So the more the liberal media hyped Hillary, the more the blue collars backed Trump.

Third, the liberal elites show a lack of political intelligence when they dismiss Trump as some kind of fascist hawk.

Trump, no more than Marine Le Pen, is no simple fascist. Just an old-fashioned, populist protectionist in the same mercantile mould as Fianna Fail or Sinn Fein.

Listen to his victory speech to supporters last week and see how familiar they sound to anyone familiar with Sinn Fein policies of the past.

“We are going to fix our inner cities and rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals. We’re going to rebuild our infrastructure, which will become, by the way, second to none. And we will put millions of our people to work as we rebuild it.”

Far from being a fascist, Trump is recycling Roosevelt. His policy is to protect American firms, even if they are not fully competitive, while at the same time he plans to increase public spending.

Ironically, Trump seems to be on the same page as President Higgins: against corporate capitalism, red in tooth and claw, against rampant globalisation.

Finally, the liberal elite also lack the emotional intelligence to figure out the psychology of either Trump or the people who voted for him.

Ryan Tubridy apart, most RTE reporters and presenters greeted the result with a kind of pious rage that precluded separating the man from the mask.

Basically, I believe Trump is a frat boy whose sexist bluster is a lot worse than his bite — and I believe most of the women who voted for him came to the same conclusion.

Furthermore, I believe Trump is both terrified and truly humbled. He badly needs a mentor, preferably female. Failing that, he will be putty in the hands of Paul Ryan and the Republicans on Capitol Hill.

And you can forget about the wall.

Let me finish by asking what Trump’s victory means for us. Two things stand out clearly, and both of them are closely linked.

First, I believe the same kind of forgotten silent majority that put Trump in the White House will surface here when the long-suffering private sector finally wakes from its stoic slumber.

In fact, I believe it has already woken but lacking populist leadership it has so far sublimated its anger in water protests and voting for Independents.

Just as Clinton took the old blue states for granted, so too Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, Labour and Sinn Fein think they can coddle and pet the public sector without a backlash from the so-far-silent private sector.

They are very deluded. Sooner or later, the private sector will rise up against the conspiracy of all parties to coddle and cosset the public sector. Here’s why. First, public sector employees are paid 40pc more on average than private sector workers — and have permanent jobs and a pension to boot.

Second, a minority is dictating to a majority. There are 300,000 employees in the public sector, but there are nearly six times that — some 1.7 million employees — in the private sector.

Yet it is that well-paid and well-pensioned minority public sector, promoted by public sector RTE, that has dominated recent demands for more money.

Politicians and the public sector unions try to pretend there is no link between the public sector getting pay rises while the private sector stoically suffers on.

But, of course, public sector wealth and private sector squalor are closely related — as the recent Budget revealed.

A massive 80pc of the increase in government spending will go on public sector pay and pensions.

Conversely, that leaves only 20pc to be spent on public services of the sort desperately needed by the majority public sector.

This scandal began with Bertie Ahern’s sweetheart deal with the public-sector unions in 2002.

Benchmarking and social partnership drove public spending high sky. We had increases of 10pc in every year after 2002.

As a result, the public sector pay bill went up like a rocket — from €6bn in 1997 to €17bn in 2008.

So far, there is no sign of any political party stopping this madness in the interest of social solidarity.

Far from it. Both the Government and Siptu are signalling another smug public sector pay conspiracy.

This leaves this country in no condition to cope with either Brexit or a Trump protectionist policy. Next time we will go under and stay under.

If we want to survive, we have to do three things. We have to freeze public sector pay and force it to pay more into pensions. We have to free up the self-employed and entrepreneurs.

Finally, we need a new social contract to look after the productive workers of the private sector.

So far, politicians have banked on the poorly paid and poorly pensioned private sector being willing to go on being a beast of burden, carrying the public sector on its back without social upheaval.

But keep living in that fool’s paradise and the Irish private sector will soon produce a populist party and an Irish Trump.

‘Public sector wealth and private sector squalor are closely linked, as the Budget reveals’