It’s not enough to ‘win the argument’, you’ve got to actually do something

Declan Lynch’s Diary

WHEN we used to care about such things, a lot of people voted for the Greens or the Labour Party or the Social Democrats, in the hope that they might bring a “progressive” twist to the next government.

Certainly anyone of my acquaintance who voted for any such party had no other motive but the vague hope that if these smaller parties had any influence at all, it might result in something good. Even one good thing would be enough. Or maybe one bad thing not happening, that would otherwise have happened.

We really don’t expect much, we are not crazy dreamers, but I think it is fair to say that at no point did anyone imagine that, say, the Greens would get 12 seats and there would still be some doubt in their minds about going into government.

Outside of actual members of the Green

Party, there is hardly a living soul who cares about internal disagreements or alternative strategies being contemplated by that party.

No, the deal is simple: we voted for you because we had cleverly calculated that you might get enough seats to get into government in some shape or form, therefore we would be obliged if you’d just do that, thank you very much and goodnight.

Yes, we understand there has to be a bit of tomfoolery around the “negotiations”, the smaller parties have to pretend at least that being in government is not for them at this time — Alan Kelly does a particularly amusing version of this one on behalf of Labour, fair play to him.

Yet there was an apparently serious contribution from outgoing Labour leader Brendan Howlin, alleging it would be a “fatal mistake” for Labour to go into government (as Eoghan Harris put it last week, “easy for Howlin with his 40 years in the Dail, and his fine pensions...”).

Moreover that “fatal mistake” had already been made by Howlin himself, insisting on becoming leader just because he could — with six seats they are not technically dead, but being in opposition hasn’t exactly electrified them either.

Yet this idea — that being in government can somehow be a worse thing than being out of government — is one of the oldest tenets of the progressive belief-system.

The last leader of the British Labour Party declared that in the general election, they had “won the argument”.

And undoubtedly they did win the argument — the left will usually win the argument, because theirs is obviously a better argument, most of the time.

But, of course, that doesn’t matter any more.

While Corbyn and his cronies were winning the argument, they were enabling Brexit — they provided no meaningful opposition to this definitive project of the far right, because really, they were too busy enjoying themselves, winning the argument.

The likes of Corbyn had never really wanted to run the country, and probably couldn’t quite believe that somehow they’d found themselves in a position where they were in danger of getting there. They had mainly built their lives around that feeling of deep self-satisfaction that you get when you think you’re right about everything, all the time.

And while we can all understand that, in these times it has become an indulgence that is no longer sustainable. Because the far right has been on the rampage, and it has only one “policy”, as such, and that is, to win.

Which is why the recent shafting of Bernie Sanders by the US Democratic

Party establishment was so interesting — with Bernie leading in the race for the nomination, with one stroke he was defeated. By that simple stroke — yes, a stroke in the purest Fianna Fail sense — the centrists Buttigieg and Klobuchar were, shall we say, “persuaded” to step down, leaving Joe Biden to occupy that ground on his own.

Personally, I suspect that only an Obama could have made that call, could have executed that move so decisively. But however they did it, there was something impressively ruthless about it — the kind of ruthlessness that the Tories showed in dumping Theresa May while Labour continued to win the argument with Corbs, the kind of ruthlessness the Republicans show in their enabling of the monstrosities of Trump.

And I say this as someone who believes that in going for Biden they went for an atrocious candidate, who may not even last until November. I was for Bernie, I see him as a perfectly reasonable man trying to make a modest difference to the lives of the majority, though I accept that in America this makes him a Marxist or a satanist of some sort.

But the virtues of Bernie are not the point here — the point is, that even his acolytes should take some perverse solace from the way that he was eliminated. From the fact that for once, it wasn’t the far right deciding that they’ll try to win the election first, and win the argument later.

To the small progressive parties of Ireland, there is a lesson here — you’re winning all the arguments, in fact you have been winning the arguments for years.

For the greater good, maybe you should consider losing a few?

‘No one ever imagined the Greens would get 12 seats and still be in doubt about going into government’