The “radical transformation” promised by the Left is clearly not the radical transformation that the voters want, and the various commentators both here and in the media should reflect on that. Maybe the voters don’t want to be taxed even more to throw money into the HSE moneypit, impressive new bikesheds or bailouts for RTE, and maybe it’s time that opposition parties started to offer something more than tax and spend policies. The opposition party which led the most radical transformation of the country in my lifetime were the PDs, who were a centre-right party with conservative fiscal and (relatively) liberal social policies as their platform.
Can’t read behind the paywall, but I’d say, rather, that the base of FF and FG are perfectly happy with the way things are going, and don’t *want* different results.
Certainly not those that Sinn Fein have to offer, who would currently be required in any government that doesn’t involve FG, and looking forward, it’s hard to see the likes of Labour or SDs usurping their place on the left wing any time soon.
House value go up = happy home-owning and landlord class, who vote more consistently than any other age or socioeconomic bracket, and make up ~45% of the electorate.
And then on stuff like healthcare, there’s virtual consensus across the parties, and seemingly things like criminal justice, public infrastructure, immigration and climate change aren’t really a consideration.
Has it occurred to Fintan that Irish voters might not want a different result?
SF dropped over 5% of first preferences from the last election. Thats not exactly voting the same is it?
Edit: it just reread my contradictory comment. I’m still trying to figure out where the SF vote went to. Lab/SD vote grew (8%), but SF/Green vote shrank significantly (9.6%). Overall the election was a slight move to the right.
I think the overlap of people wanting things to be different and those voting FFG is probably not that large in fairness.
The majority of people are not voting FF or FG. In fact the current political landscape and coalition is a result of their dwindling popularity.
It might take longer then people would like to break the cycle but it’s hard to have a dramatic shift without some giant sharp disaster as a result of the sitting government
Or maybe the cohort of people that he sees wanting change are not the same people as those voting for the ‘more of the same’ parties 😱😱
110% spot on.
Let’s keep splitting the vote and punishing the junior. That will show em
The FFG base are content, and will continue to do well.
By punishing the junior parties over and over we reset the whole progress and are somehow surprised that the FFG voter base remains
Newsflash Fintan, Irish voters don’t have one hive mind. Each voter has their own unique thoughts and opinions on which party they want to form a government.
The Irish voters that are happy with the status quo (seemingly the majority) are not out protesting about how great they have it, so the unhappy voters get the spotlight.
I think the opposition has nothing to offer anyone working in a well paid job, and we are some of the best paid workers in the world.
Our already high taxes should be helping run the country and by saying we’re going to take more taxes from you and less from this other group that is paying less already is not very palatable, even if you think you can spend it better.
Loads of voters weren’t convinced that the opposition could improve things enough for them to be voted en masse. It’s really that simple.
Quite often the approach in this sub exemplified it. The accounts here posting the daily comments telling people who not to vote for rather than who to vote for and why.
Maybe if we talked with the people who vote FFG and not to the fucking echo chamber.
Actually Fintan, I keep doing the same thing and get exactly what I want!
“The people what change! 😬😬” Correct me if I’m wrong, but people want an improvement in governance. “Change” is talked about as if it’s not possible for alternative governments to massively make a huge mess of everything. A lot of people are turned off my magic wond solutions, the more fantastical change you promise, the less genuine your promises become.
Who’s to say they want a different result when they didn’t vote according to that? The results speak for themselves surely?
Or Irish voters keep hoping for realistic alternatives but keep getting the same options.
Not everyone who votes for the status quo is happy about it but they clearly don’t believe the opposition can deliver an improvement. That’s a failing of the opposition not the voters.
I think they as a whole they knew exactly what they were doing and it is a vote for “stability and to continue as we are”.
the people who voted this way
* probably have a house
* probably have a job that pays the bills
* things have gotten more expensive but still affordable
they are not risking that and hoping that Sinn fein are competent and will not mess up the status quo.
A lot of people are jumping in to get angry about how Fintan is basically just complaining about a vague lot of nothing. The thing is, that’s literally his job, and I for one think he’s pretty good at it. If you want to start your day with a bit of petty but erudite negativity, he’s your man.
I think people people at projecting. They think because they want change that everyone does. Clearly most people are happy with their lot and don’t want change.
What tends to happen at election time is that a lot of people think about one or two issues that effect them and then assume that that’s all there is to it.
It’s been made very clear the majority of people are happy with their lives in this country, even if there is the odd thing they would like to see changed, they don’t want to change what they are happy with.
I don’t know where he gets the idea that most people are voting for change. 70% of people either didn’t vote for anyone (40%), or voted for the current government (30%). The rest is split between everything from full on trotskyists like PBP, to centre left populists like SF, right wing conservatives like Aontú and independents running the entire gamut.
I think the premise of the article is wrong. I don’t think anyone is expecting different results, I think it’s the exact opposite – they vote how they do to keep things the same. Because, ostensibly, things aren’t that bad… though perhaps more accurately, things could be a lot worse.
For the older generation, they are well looked after (whether they’re wealthy or not, they own property and it’s not threatened, they have generous pensions and benefits etc). They aren’t going to bite the hand that feeds them by going off piste voting for any of the non-mainstream parties.
What is needed is a credible opposition, but we don’t have that. SF keep coming close but (owing to various reasons) keeps snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. They should be hoovering the disaffected youth vote, but they aren’t, at least not in the way they should be because they just aren’t credible. Sure I might be spending a huge amount of my income on renting some shitty one bed in Drimnagh, but at least I have a job to pay for it. Do SF have the credibility to manage the economy? I don’t think enough of the electorate agree.
Do FF or FG? Well no, not well anyway, but better the devil you know. I think they benefit from that sentiment too much.
As for the rest, Labour was once a credible opposition, but really poor planning since 2011 seems to have finished them off. I though Ivana Bacik might have turned things around but that doesn’t seem to have come to pass. The Greens have fucked it. Though I think their fall from grace was inevitable and not all their own fault.
The Social Democrats might be the best opposition party in the ascendency now, taking the place Labour used to hold, but don’t seem to be getting the media attention they ought to, which is undoubtedly to their discredit I think.
The number of independent candidates also plays a part here; they really are the prime example of the role of Parish Pump politics for the Irish electorate and how we often don’t vote for the party, but the person. In that respect they too are voting for the same people and expecting the same result too.
No I think most of them knew who they were voting for Fintan
Why do people assume that everyone who voted FF/FG is happy with the status quo? I would argue there is probably a large number of voters dissatisfied with FF/FG but that means nothing if the proposed alternative can’t convince them that they have the answers. Pretending that the older generation or home owners just don’t care about the issues others face and only care about their own interests mean that the alternatives will never try to learn from their failures, they’ll never learn what concerns people have about their policies and you’ll never encourage that large number of swayable FF/FG voters.
If this country wants a left alliance in government then it falls on the left parties to actually start convincing people that they have answers. There’s a reason a lot of Labour/SD votes transfer to FF/FG over other alternatives.
TLDR; Irish people are fucking stupid.
Who says we expect different results? The majority of the population voted for the status quo
The most important thing in Ireland is reacting sensibly to what’s happening to globalisation – Ie the fact that it’s retrenching and that a populist is in the White House.
Housing is also extremely important, but no one is going to click their fingers and fix that. Similarly no one is going to fix the HSE or make the public sector more efficient.
Anyone who wants to push taxes up even higher than they already are to fund some social welfare scheme or some other project or quango is insane.
Add to that the fact that the biggest party of the left has a toxic association with the PIRA.
There are no options other than FF and FG!
The smug arrogance of this article is even by The Tool’s standard breathtaking. The voters are stupid,I know best and this country is a Kip because …. It’s the type of arrogance that galvanised the deplorables in the US to finally say F u to the great Intelligentsia and vote Trump and leave the rest of us globally to deal with the chaos ….
There’s a shocking number of accounts less than a year old with randomly generated names all saying the same thing which is frankly rather concerning, particularly the “no viable alternative’s” point which is, and has always been, pure nonsense.
I believe if it wasn’t for SF we’d have a far stronger left vote.
There’s a huge amount of people who will never vote for SF in its current incarnation. We don’t trust them.
30 comments
40% of the electorate did nothing in fairness
Maybe I like the misery.
The “radical transformation” promised by the Left is clearly not the radical transformation that the voters want, and the various commentators both here and in the media should reflect on that. Maybe the voters don’t want to be taxed even more to throw money into the HSE moneypit, impressive new bikesheds or bailouts for RTE, and maybe it’s time that opposition parties started to offer something more than tax and spend policies. The opposition party which led the most radical transformation of the country in my lifetime were the PDs, who were a centre-right party with conservative fiscal and (relatively) liberal social policies as their platform.
Can’t read behind the paywall, but I’d say, rather, that the base of FF and FG are perfectly happy with the way things are going, and don’t *want* different results.
Certainly not those that Sinn Fein have to offer, who would currently be required in any government that doesn’t involve FG, and looking forward, it’s hard to see the likes of Labour or SDs usurping their place on the left wing any time soon.
House value go up = happy home-owning and landlord class, who vote more consistently than any other age or socioeconomic bracket, and make up ~45% of the electorate.
And then on stuff like healthcare, there’s virtual consensus across the parties, and seemingly things like criminal justice, public infrastructure, immigration and climate change aren’t really a consideration.
Has it occurred to Fintan that Irish voters might not want a different result?
SF dropped over 5% of first preferences from the last election. Thats not exactly voting the same is it?
Edit: it just reread my contradictory comment. I’m still trying to figure out where the SF vote went to. Lab/SD vote grew (8%), but SF/Green vote shrank significantly (9.6%). Overall the election was a slight move to the right.
I think the overlap of people wanting things to be different and those voting FFG is probably not that large in fairness.
The majority of people are not voting FF or FG. In fact the current political landscape and coalition is a result of their dwindling popularity.
It might take longer then people would like to break the cycle but it’s hard to have a dramatic shift without some giant sharp disaster as a result of the sitting government
Or maybe the cohort of people that he sees wanting change are not the same people as those voting for the ‘more of the same’ parties 😱😱
110% spot on.
Let’s keep splitting the vote and punishing the junior. That will show em
The FFG base are content, and will continue to do well.
By punishing the junior parties over and over we reset the whole progress and are somehow surprised that the FFG voter base remains
Newsflash Fintan, Irish voters don’t have one hive mind. Each voter has their own unique thoughts and opinions on which party they want to form a government.
The Irish voters that are happy with the status quo (seemingly the majority) are not out protesting about how great they have it, so the unhappy voters get the spotlight.
I think the opposition has nothing to offer anyone working in a well paid job, and we are some of the best paid workers in the world.
Our already high taxes should be helping run the country and by saying we’re going to take more taxes from you and less from this other group that is paying less already is not very palatable, even if you think you can spend it better.
Loads of voters weren’t convinced that the opposition could improve things enough for them to be voted en masse. It’s really that simple.
Quite often the approach in this sub exemplified it. The accounts here posting the daily comments telling people who not to vote for rather than who to vote for and why.
Maybe if we talked with the people who vote FFG and not to the fucking echo chamber.
Actually Fintan, I keep doing the same thing and get exactly what I want!
“The people what change! 😬😬” Correct me if I’m wrong, but people want an improvement in governance. “Change” is talked about as if it’s not possible for alternative governments to massively make a huge mess of everything. A lot of people are turned off my magic wond solutions, the more fantastical change you promise, the less genuine your promises become.
Who’s to say they want a different result when they didn’t vote according to that? The results speak for themselves surely?
Or Irish voters keep hoping for realistic alternatives but keep getting the same options.
Not everyone who votes for the status quo is happy about it but they clearly don’t believe the opposition can deliver an improvement. That’s a failing of the opposition not the voters.
I think they as a whole they knew exactly what they were doing and it is a vote for “stability and to continue as we are”.
the people who voted this way
* probably have a house
* probably have a job that pays the bills
* things have gotten more expensive but still affordable
they are not risking that and hoping that Sinn fein are competent and will not mess up the status quo.
A lot of people are jumping in to get angry about how Fintan is basically just complaining about a vague lot of nothing. The thing is, that’s literally his job, and I for one think he’s pretty good at it. If you want to start your day with a bit of petty but erudite negativity, he’s your man.
I think people people at projecting. They think because they want change that everyone does. Clearly most people are happy with their lot and don’t want change.
What tends to happen at election time is that a lot of people think about one or two issues that effect them and then assume that that’s all there is to it.
It’s been made very clear the majority of people are happy with their lives in this country, even if there is the odd thing they would like to see changed, they don’t want to change what they are happy with.
I don’t know where he gets the idea that most people are voting for change. 70% of people either didn’t vote for anyone (40%), or voted for the current government (30%). The rest is split between everything from full on trotskyists like PBP, to centre left populists like SF, right wing conservatives like Aontú and independents running the entire gamut.
I think the premise of the article is wrong. I don’t think anyone is expecting different results, I think it’s the exact opposite – they vote how they do to keep things the same. Because, ostensibly, things aren’t that bad… though perhaps more accurately, things could be a lot worse.
For the older generation, they are well looked after (whether they’re wealthy or not, they own property and it’s not threatened, they have generous pensions and benefits etc). They aren’t going to bite the hand that feeds them by going off piste voting for any of the non-mainstream parties.
What is needed is a credible opposition, but we don’t have that. SF keep coming close but (owing to various reasons) keeps snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. They should be hoovering the disaffected youth vote, but they aren’t, at least not in the way they should be because they just aren’t credible. Sure I might be spending a huge amount of my income on renting some shitty one bed in Drimnagh, but at least I have a job to pay for it. Do SF have the credibility to manage the economy? I don’t think enough of the electorate agree.
Do FF or FG? Well no, not well anyway, but better the devil you know. I think they benefit from that sentiment too much.
As for the rest, Labour was once a credible opposition, but really poor planning since 2011 seems to have finished them off. I though Ivana Bacik might have turned things around but that doesn’t seem to have come to pass. The Greens have fucked it. Though I think their fall from grace was inevitable and not all their own fault.
The Social Democrats might be the best opposition party in the ascendency now, taking the place Labour used to hold, but don’t seem to be getting the media attention they ought to, which is undoubtedly to their discredit I think.
The number of independent candidates also plays a part here; they really are the prime example of the role of Parish Pump politics for the Irish electorate and how we often don’t vote for the party, but the person. In that respect they too are voting for the same people and expecting the same result too.
No I think most of them knew who they were voting for Fintan
Why do people assume that everyone who voted FF/FG is happy with the status quo? I would argue there is probably a large number of voters dissatisfied with FF/FG but that means nothing if the proposed alternative can’t convince them that they have the answers. Pretending that the older generation or home owners just don’t care about the issues others face and only care about their own interests mean that the alternatives will never try to learn from their failures, they’ll never learn what concerns people have about their policies and you’ll never encourage that large number of swayable FF/FG voters.
If this country wants a left alliance in government then it falls on the left parties to actually start convincing people that they have answers. There’s a reason a lot of Labour/SD votes transfer to FF/FG over other alternatives.
TLDR; Irish people are fucking stupid.
Who says we expect different results? The majority of the population voted for the status quo
The most important thing in Ireland is reacting sensibly to what’s happening to globalisation – Ie the fact that it’s retrenching and that a populist is in the White House.
Housing is also extremely important, but no one is going to click their fingers and fix that. Similarly no one is going to fix the HSE or make the public sector more efficient.
Anyone who wants to push taxes up even higher than they already are to fund some social welfare scheme or some other project or quango is insane.
Add to that the fact that the biggest party of the left has a toxic association with the PIRA.
There are no options other than FF and FG!
The smug arrogance of this article is even by The Tool’s standard breathtaking. The voters are stupid,I know best and this country is a Kip because …. It’s the type of arrogance that galvanised the deplorables in the US to finally say F u to the great Intelligentsia and vote Trump and leave the rest of us globally to deal with the chaos ….
There’s a shocking number of accounts less than a year old with randomly generated names all saying the same thing which is frankly rather concerning, particularly the “no viable alternative’s” point which is, and has always been, pure nonsense.
I believe if it wasn’t for SF we’d have a far stronger left vote.
There’s a huge amount of people who will never vote for SF in its current incarnation. We don’t trust them.
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