The Trump Affect On Ireland's Media

Irish Media In A Trump Meltdown
It appears Trump has affected the Irish media...

Trump sends Irish media into meltdown
John Spain @IrishCentral

Some of the most fraught reaction to Trump has come from the more "intellectual" end of the media spectrum in Ireland, with several writers almost having nervous breakdowns in print. To these emotionally incontinent scribes all we can say is calm down, it's not going to be that bad.Some of the most fraught reaction to Trump has come from the more "intellectual" end of the media spectrum in Ireland, with several writers almost having nervous breakdowns in print. To these emotionally incontinent scribes all we can say is calm down, it's not going to be that bad.GAGE SKIDMORE / FLICKR

Let's all take a very deep breath. Certainly a lot of people in Ireland need to.

The Donald Trump triumph has seen an unprecedented outpouring of disgust, despair and fury from media commentators in Ireland over the past week. This has included predictions that America is doomed, that human rights there have been set back 50 years, that global security is in peril ... and that's just the start of it. It's the end of civilized society, it seems.

Some of the most fraught reaction has come from the more "intellectual" end of the media spectrum here, with several writers almost having nervous breakdowns in print. To these emotionally incontinent scribes all we can say is calm down, it's not going to be that bad.

We're all horrified, but ridiculing Trump and, even worse, patronizing his supporters (they're not "college educated" like us) is not going to get us anywhere.

The media in America are equally aghast, but at least some of them have been trying to figure out how they got it so wrong, instead of just having a whinge-fest. Here, it's simply been an orgy of superiority and derision, with each writer trying to sound more nauseated and outraged than the next.

Of course some of this is understandable. The crude, offensive language used by Trump during the campaign, the name calling, the simplistic slogans (Build the Wall, Lock Her Up, Drain the Swamp, etc.) lowered the election to a depth never before plumbed in a presidential race.

But some of the commentators here who have been most horrified by the Trump victory are now playing the same reductionist game, using simplistic labels instead of a thorough analysis of what was being said.

So they refer to Trump as racist, misogynistic, xenophobic and half a dozen other unacceptable characteristics, often listed in a single sentence. But, despite what he said at various times on the stump, that is a simplistic reduction of what he was trying to articulate.

A big part of the problem with Trump is that, compared to someone like Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, he is barely articulate. He expresses himself clumsily in disjointed phrases instead of in polished, nuanced sentences like a skillful politician.

Let's take the two most quoted examples. He thinks Mexicans are rapists and murderers and he wants to ban Muslims, so that makes him a racist twice over, right? Except that is not exactly what he said. He said some Mexicans who get into the U.S. turn out to be criminal, including rapists and murderers, and there has been a problem trying to remove them and keep them out, which is true. So he wants to build a wall (in other words have a secure southern border).

He said that banning Muslims from entering the country might be necessary "until we can figure out what the hell is going on," referring to an immigration system that has failed to identify radicalized individuals from a Muslim background who might pose a threat to Americans.

Continue reading... very interesting article

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