“I look forward to being there. Great country,” US president Donald Trump said about our island nation during his meeting with Leo Varadkar on the annual Paddy’s Day white house shamrock delivery.
Great. After all, we’re ‘wonderful people’ and our border with the north is ‘interesting’. It sounds like the kind of conversation you may have with a pensioner in a fish restaurant in Daytona Beach, Florida, while describing the Blarney Stone, but we’ll take it.
Don’t mind the buffoon citizens who have taken umbridge in the form of a infantile #IrishStand or #NoTrumpinvite hashtags on social media.
Labour Party Senator Aodhán Ó Ríordáin has thrown the rattle out of the pram, slamming the 45th democratically elected president’s potential visit stating that; “The Taoiseach insults us all by inviting him.”
Words like ‘hateful,’ ‘dangerous’, ‘outage’ and ‘spawn’ littered his statement. Online polls suggest that half of Irish people aren’t too fussed about him coming. Last year an RTE poll suggested 78 percent of Irish people think America is worse off with Trump at the helm.
Its funny how they didn’t seem to mind him when he officially opened Doonbeg Golf course and hotel in 2002, which he now ‘couldn’t care less about,’ and ‘may never see again.’
Just for reference we’re still expecting a second visit from Chinese president Xi Jinping, who was first here in 2012. China has a rotten human rights record with highlights including the systematic killing of tens of thousands Falun Gong practitioners for their organs. It’s grim stuff.
What did Trump do? Call some countries shitty? Well call me old fashioned, but isn’t systematic genocide kind of shitty?
Nauseatingly smiley, fake nice guy Barack Obama received a hero’s welcome in Ireland in 2012, yet he dropped 26,171 bombs in the middle east in 2016 and was known as ‘the deporter in chief,’ whatever about Hillary Clinton and Bill.
Unlike Obama or the Clinton’s or any other president who came before, Trump isn’t one sixteenth Irish and doesn’t seem to care too much about our ‘special relations.’
While focusing on all his blunders, brutishness and appalling delivery, he has managed to achieve a lot in his first 14 months in office. Gross domestic product in the US has grown by more than 3 percent for two quarters in a row. Consumer confidence rose to the highest level in 17 years, he worked out trade deals with China, Vietnam, South Korea and could be meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un by May.
The Dow has set record highs 70 times this year, rising 5000 points in one year the first time in history and the corporate tax rate will be cut to 21 percent, exciting business owners and fueling stock market records and potential attracting US business back to the States.
He previously pledged to attract US multinational investment back home, describing how Apple and other companies had kept billions of dollars offshore, tantalised by our corporate tax schemes.
Before we grab our anti Trump banners and make our way to Dublin airport to express our disgust at his potential visit, let’s remember that 150,000 people are employed by American companies in Ireland. Also 37.5 million Irish Americans identify as Irish or part Irish and as Mr Varadkar stated, he wants to encourage him to take a softly-softly Irish-centric approach to any illegals, which taking into account Trump’s hardline stance, could be tricky.
Despite the many protestations, we must remember that he is anti- illegal immigrants, not legal ones, so let’s not rock the boat. He is rather sensitive after all.
When megalomaniacal Trump arrives, we’ll have fun with it. There will be no asslicking. He’ll be telling us how stupid we are and how we’re being killed by China. He is mistrustful of the EU, which includes us, and won’t like the Obama Plaza. He’ll make some reference to thinking he’s somewhere in Africa or something.
He’ll get great crowds wherever he goes, simply because of his refreshing irreverence. He starred in Home Alone, beat up up some dude in a wrestling match, starred in the Apprentice and doesn’t bow to leftist winging. Bush started two wars, and now look at him pretending to be a bastion of honour and goodness. So far Trump’s played the big matcho, sinking a few businesses, losing a few wives.
He won’t drink Guinness, but he may drop into Supermacs on O’Connell Street and give our politicians funny names like ‘Scary Mary Lou’ or ‘Lucky Leo.’
I will enjoy watching the leftist media get itself in a tizzy, pouncing on every erratic word that comes out of his mouth, waiting for him to offend someone or something, which he will.
So when Trump comes over to ‘have some good talks about trade and about military,’ whatever the hell that means, we’ll keep him close. He doesn’t really care about us, our shamrocks or leprechaun economics so it’s up to us to impress him.
I was at his inauguration last year in Washington and remember noting that the sky didn’t fall on anyone’s head.
Despite the stance of some of our citizens, it won’t fall on our heads either when he comes to visit our beautiful little island.