Their feelings on him

GALWAY, Ireland — “He is a take-charge guy, you have to admit that,” the man in his late 40s says to me. “He says he’s going to do something, and he does it, just like that. And he doesn’t take any sh—- (they often use a five-letter word for this particular expletive here), and that’s a fact.”

People in Ireland want to talk about him, and they want to talk about him with me. I would rather not participate, but I’m an accommodating visitor, so I mostly listen. And when I go to pubs in Ireland to watch World Cup games — because that’s what you do in Ireland — and people find out I’m from the United States, they particularly want to talk about him.

“And he’s a tough guy, too. I like that. We need to quit accommodating these little pr—-s. The West needed a tough guy in charge, and now we have one, finally, tanks God,” the pontificating man says, turning his “th” into a “t” as so many Irish do.

I have done little to interrupt this gent’s soliloquy, but I’m compelled to at this point.

“Wait. Hold on. He’s not a tough guy,” I interject brazenly. “He’s soft as a baby’s behind. He’s Richie Rich. He’s never been in a street fight, never done a minute of manual labor in his life, never had a callous. I bet he’s never even mown a lawn on a warm summer day. The tough guy thing, it’s all an act.”

The Irishman’s eyes bulge with surprise that I have piped up suddenly and with such vehemence when he was just getting on a roll. Being Irish, though, he quickly recovers and restarts his sermon.

I go back to listening, but halftime is over in the game, so at least now I can look away while he rambles on.

This guy, though, is an anomaly, not in the fact that he’s a gabber, as most Irish are that, but in that he’s a supporter. Most people here will, unprovoked, tell visitors from the States that they believe that the man in question is a boob, a racist, and a lying fool who is leading the world down a rat hole.

Many Irish people will tell you, when it comes right down to it, they prefer Putin, because at least Putin knows when to shut up.

And I had most of these conversations before you know who came to the United Kingdom and undermined the prime minister, threw his support to someone else to take over as prime minister (both before he met with the prime minister), personally attacked the mayor of London, then moved over to mainland Europe and called the European Union a “foe” before crawling up in the lap of Putin and purring like a pussycat.

All of this affects the Irish because Ireland is both part of the EU and a next-door neighbor to Great Britain, and despite many historic (and justified) grievances against the United Kingdom, is a working partner in many ways with the U.K. So what affects the U.K. affects Ireland, generally. The whole Brexit thing, which Trump supports as part of his international nationalist agenda, will affect Ireland in countless ways.

Finally, after going on and on about you know who for another 15 to 20 minutes, my pub neighbor gets off his barstool to visit the toilet. A man sitting on the opposite side of the pontificator leans over to me and says, “Don’t worry. Most of us totally hate him.”

I don’t know if he’s referring to the barroom political pundit or the most powerful man in the world.

I don’t ask.