IT WILL BE SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, ON SPEED

IT WILL BE SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, ON SPEED

                                                                     by Ron Walsh

                                                                                Despite the fact that he will be wearing orange make-up, Donald J. Trump will be inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States on January 20th of 2025. (A Trump supporter was once asked what the ‘’J’’ stood for, and replied that it was for ‘’Genius’’) Most of the civilised world will definitely not like the idea, mainly because the man is so totally unpredictable. Personally I think that his reign will be an almost continuous comedy show, for good or bad.

                                                                                 The MAGA party and its supporters (previously known as the Republican Party) claim that Trump has been given a massive mandate by the country’s voters to enact his promises to them. Most election winners make that claim, while some are even true. But not in this case, and information from ‘’exit polls’’ confirm that as a fact. The overwhelming reason for supporting Trump was inflation, and the cost of living, but the vast majority do not support his goals. Trump won because inflation had gotten out of hand under President Joe Biden. Simple as that. And a big contribution to the rise in prices across the board had been the 1.9 billion dollars pumped into the economy by Biden himself.

                                                                                 Some of Trump’s cabinet appointments are being critised already, even by members of the MAGA party itself. Matt Gaetz was the first nominee by the President-elect to cause outrage when cited as Attorney General. A man against whom there are allegations of wrongdoing, including sex with a minor, and drug use. As Trump himself is now legally defined as a ‘’sexual predator’’ Gaetz’s selection was hardly a revelation. Thankfully, he was removed. By popular demand!

Marco Rubio as Secretary of State and Scott Bessent as Treasury Secretary have been accepted without protest, but that of Kash Patel as FBI Director has hit the proverbial fan. This man is a great believer in conspiracy theories, and, when appointed, has threatened to throw bureaucrats in jail, and all reporters who did not go along with the 2020 ‘’stop the steal’’ theory. Revenge on Trump’s political enemies is very important to the man. In the mainly civilised world of politics your opponents are not generally regarded as your enemies!

Elon Musk, who owns the space company SpaceX, the automotive company Tesla Inc., also owns X Corp, the company that operates the social media platform X (he has an ongoing love affair with the letter X), will be appointed to lead the ‘’Department of Government Efficiency’’, which will advise on cost-cutting. Musk recently urged parents to limit their children’s exposure to social media, highlighting the potential psychological harm. True, but far more could and should be done by X in an attempt to fight the decline in teenage mental health. He has a penchant for incendiary commentary on his social media platform which has alienated many, and like Trump himself, is an admirer of Putin, mainly for business reasons.

Mark Zuckerberg is another man who has made a fortune from social media platforms. His company Meta owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. When he appeared before congress in January of 2024 he received a dressing down over child safety, but in reply claimed that there was no evidence linking social media use to a decline in young peoples mental health. However Republican senator Josh Hawley accused Zuckerberg of ‘’taking no action’’ to address the issue when it had been brought to his attention previously, which prompted the multi-billionaire to make a rare public apology to parents whose children had suffered. ‘’This is why we invest so much to make sure that no one has to go through the things your families have had to suffer’’. Talk is cheap! Interestingly, he recently paid a visit to President-elect Trump, which prompted much speculation. But a few years back Trump claimed that Zuckerberg had plotted against him in 2020, and warned him that if he did it again in 2024 he would ‘’spend the rest of his life in jail’’.

While Trump will not be appointing Zuckerberg to his cabinet anytime soon, or anytime ever, he has nominated Robert Kennedy Jr. to take care of the nations health, by putting him in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services. The infamous anti-vaxer will oversee the agencies that play a central role in researching, reviewing, and recommending various vaccines. To be fair to him Kennedy appears more interested in cutting down on America’s consumption of seed oils and frozen school-lunch pizza, while Trump had promised to improve the diet and the overall health of American’s. However the President-elect’s pick to lead the Department of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, has no direct agricultural experience that prepares her for the job whatsoever.

Robert Kennedy Jr. has often spoken out against the fast food industry, yet a recent photo taken on board Trump’s plane belies his stance. There, in the company of the President elect, Musk, and others, he appears overjoyed to be holding a just-delivered take-out provided by a local McDonald’s! Ah, dumbing down!

In Trump’s first term he had a number of advisers who would tell him what not to say or do, such as ‘’you cannot shoot migrants in the legs’’. This time around he appears to only want loyalists who will tell him whatever it is that he wishes to hear. Marjorie Taylor Green springs to mind immediately, who has recently commented ‘’Its important to realise who stood with President Trump from the beginning, never backed down, never stabbed him in the back’’. There are many MAGA supporters who look upon Green as someone short of a full deck, but she will be working in Musk’s department and may even play a role in Trump’s plan to launch ‘’the largest deportation operation in American history’’. As pointed out in a recent on-line article, of all the scary prospects of Donald Trump returning to the White House, one of the scariest is the strong possibility that there won’t be any “adults in the room”.

It has been said that the Donald is considering Ron De Santis for Defence Secretary, as his original choice Pete Hegseth appears to be losing out over allegations of sexual assault, alcohol abuse, and mismanagement with two veterans organisations. It is also said that Trump is interested in appointing Pete Marocco to his team, a well known right-wing activist who was at the Capitol building on January 6th! Who needs enemies when you have friends like that?

And then there is President Joe Biden’s recent decision to pardon his son Hunter Biden over tax evasion and gun charges, after promising for years that he would never do so. The decision also insulates Hunter from any federal offences he may have committed over the last ten years. In the run-up to the recent Presidential election Democrats had been warning everyone that Trump was a threat to the rule of law, to faith in public institutions, and to the truth itself. With the Donald threatening to take revenge on Hunter Biden after he takes office, its understandable why the President did what he did. Nonetheless, it was a major mistake! Not that Trump needs any excuse to pardon those who participated in the January 6th revolution, as he has already promised to do so.

President Biden’s decision-making has not been good for some time. His refusal to step-down from the Presidential race until the main financial supporters behind the Democratic Party threatened to pull the plug, was an embarrassing moment. So to is Hunter’s pardon. The Presidential Pardon should really be abolished.

In 1974, following the Watergate scandal, Gerald Ford gave Richard Nixon a full and unconditional pardon for any crimes he may have committed against the US. Ford lost the 1976 election. In 2001 Bill Clinton pardoned his half-brother Roger Clinton after he had completed a prison term for drug charges. He later pardoned his former business partner Susan McDougal for her role in the Whitewater real estate deal. In December of 2020, Donald Trump pardoned Charles Kushner, father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who had pleaded guilty to tax evasion and making illegal campaign donations. In 2017 Barack Obama released Chelsea Manning from jail. She had been behind an unauthorised release of sensitive US Government material, was convicted of espionage in 2013 and had been sentenced to 35 years in jail. Where will it all end?

In a recent ‘’Irish Independent’’ newspaper article Joseph Stiglitz claims that the reason why the obviously unqualified Donald Trump won the recent election is because ‘’40 years of neo-liberalism have left the US with unprecedented inequality, stagnation in the middle of the income spectrum, and declining average life expectancy. The American Dream is being killed’’. (Stiglitz is a former chair of the US President’s Council of Economic Advisers, and a Nobel laureate in economics.)

Trump has promised a cull on immigrants, and to kick out the millions of illegals already in the country. However, some jobs that Americans shy away from such as fruit-pickers and meat-packers are held mainly by foreign-born workers. For a country that loves its steaks and burgers it should be noted that the beef industry has been in decline for a number of years, while the beef herd itself is the smallest since 1951, and has been brought about by high feed prices and drought. Chicken has become quite popular, with beef and veal imports for 2024 totaling around two million metric tons, and accounting for over 15% of domestic consumption. Less foreign-born meat-packers will result in higher labour costs, which will result in higher prices, and might well result in trouble for the Donald.

Returning to the previously mentioned article Stiglitz points out that Trump ‘’has no intention of enacting the types of policies that ordinary Americans need’’. Instead he will enact tax cuts for corporations and billionaires, end Obamacare, bring in many tariffs which will simply be a tax on consumers and businesses, and repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes provisions to reduce prescription drug prices. Finally Stiglitz writes that the Democrats need ‘’to provide a new vision of a society that offers education and opportunity to all’’. What have the Americans voted for?

What they will certainly get is a precarious ride on the Big Dipper, with lashings of Saturday Night Live, on speed! But even more seriously the United States and most of the free world is likely to wake up to the whims of an egotistical megalomanic whose main purpose in life will be to seek revenge on those who have previously opposed or slighted him. He has threatened to release those who stormed the Capitol on January 6th while throwing in jail those who sat on the associated Committee. No claim here that there were ‘’very fine people on both sides’’. ‘’The world turned upside down’’, as the British declared after being defeated at Yorktown by Washington’s army!

Trump has declared that he will hit all countries exporting to the US with large tariffs, from Europe, Canada, Mexico, China, and wherever. After being asked the obvious question, would this mean that Americans would face price hikes, all he could guarantee was that ‘’I can’t guarantee anything’’. Which is at least an honest answer. The recent President-elects visit to Paris for the reopening of Notre Dame cathedral showed Emmanuel Macron fawning all over him, which was something of a change. Trump’s previous visits to Europe while President were often marked by quiet laughter from many world leaders, and even quieter jokes, at the Donald’s expense. Maybe the threat of tariffs has put some manners on Macron.

From an Irish point of view, because of our large volume of exports to the US, this could be a very serious matter down the road. Especially for our pharmaceutical companies. There is also the threat posed to the big American multinational companies operating here, such as Apple and Google, as a re-working of US tax law could eventually lead to a major drop in Ireland’s corporate tax take. The US has already lowered its corporate tax rate down from 35% to 21%, but Trump has threatened to bring it down to 15%, which is the rate that Ireland recently settled on as part of an international agreement. (It is 12.5% at the moment.)

When it happens, and it will, there is no reason to suppose that there would be a significant exodus of US companies from Ireland in its aftermath, as this country is an ideal entry point to the European market, and where English is the spoken language. Most companies have invested a significant amount of time and money in building up their operations here, and would be unlikely to throw that aside. However they may be less likely to make further investments in Ireland, which could have a longer term impact, making it harder for the Irish state to secure more jobs. At the moment over 200,000 people are directly employed by US multinationals here, with the companies moving their profits through Ireland, and with Ireland then taking a slice of the profits. Many US multinationals moved their intellectual property (IP) to this country, which meant that more of their money ended up here, with Ireland taking more of it in tax.

In 2014 Ireland took in just under five billion Euros in corporate tax, rising to twenty-four billion Euros in 2023. Trump wants these companies to shift their IP’s back to the US, and no American administration could be blamed for wanting that to happen even though the Biden government showed no real desire to do so. If it does happen Ireland could be down something like twelve billion Euros straight away. A not insignificant amount.

In September of 2024 Apple lost a long-running court battle with the European Union, and was forced to pay 13 billion Euros ($14.4 billion) in back taxes to Ireland, as part of a crackdown on ‘’sweetheart deals’’. The EU had been arguing that, ever since 2014, Ireland had been acting illegally by giving Apple a favourable tax deal. The Irish government did not agree with that particular assessment, as it was worried that any ruling would make the country a less attractive home for large companies wanting to pay low rates of corporation tax, and spent ten million Euros in legal fees fighting the case! And now its throwing the Apple money around like confetti.

The way the Irish government has been throwing money about lately gives the impression that tomorrow might never actually arrive, with social payments going through the roof. (As a fully qualified OAP myself, I kiss their silly little heads.) While the Children’s Allowance has been hitting stratospheric heights for quite a number of years the latest budget offer of 280 Euros for every newborn baby, in addition to the normal 140 Euro Child Benefit payment, with a double payment last November, had to have been thought up while government ministers were attending the cheap bar inside Leinster House, all as pissed as neut’s.

In the run-up to last November’s general election Fine Gael, one of the government parties, promised that if re-elected they would launch a plan for the state to give every newborn baby 1,000 Euros! It would appear that Fine Gael, and indeed the entire government, have gone completely bonkers. As in ‘’crazy’’. With the Child Benefit payment set so high, certainly for people who view the future no further away than the next Children’s Allowance payment, bonking, which has always been just about everyone’s favourite pass-time, has been elevated by some people into a cottage industry. And in a country where there is a massive housing shortage already! Do any of our T.D’s live in the real world?

From the sublime to the ridiculous. In the budget 9 million Euros was allocated to purchase mobile-phone pouches for secondary school pupils. While phones are now part of everyday life, it could be argued that they should not be allowed into schools in the first place. It could also be argued that if the little darlings cannot function properly without them, it should be the parents who provide the pouches not the taxpayers of the country. After all they can afford to buy their offspring these expensive little items in the first place. But the government in its largess decided to go ahead with the idea, even though the cost of replacement pouches were estimated at a further 1.7 million Euros per year. Some schools suggested that the 9 million Euros could have been spent on more important items.

We are one of the most indebted countries in the world, as we owe our favourite moneylender 223 billion Euros. A colossal figure! Last year (2023) we paid 3.4 billion Euros in interest on the loan! Yet no one in government appears to be worrying about it, nor of Trump’s intentions on corporate tax. But we can certainly clap ourselves on the back for having recently raised our compulsory retirement age from 65 to 70, subject to suitability and good health. There was almost a revolution in France last year when it was proposed to raise its retirement age from 62 to an outlandish 64! Was it because they eat snails?

Meanwhile back to the good old US of A, where the voters have elected (and here I repeat myself) a man legally defined as a ‘’sexual predator’’. (Of course we in Ireland should restrain our sniggering, as in the recent general election the head of a crime gang almost made it to parliament.) The Donald has already enjoyed an early match-up with the newly-elected Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, in which he claims to have come off the winner, with her agreeing to stop all migrants, and the pentanyl drug, from crossing over the Mexico/US border, because of threats of a 25% tariff if she did not do so. She would be ‘’effectively closing our southern border’’. In her own statement to the media Sheinbaum claimed that she ‘’would never close the border’’, and had asked Trump to stop the blockades on Cuba and Venezuela, which causes people to suffer, and leads to migration. Maybe it was a drawn encounter.

Boys and young men all over the world are falling under the influence of obnoxious social media figures, and are being drawn to negative, destructive types of masculinity. ‘’Men who don’t dominate in relationships aren’t real men’’ is their motto. Independent tech analyst Benedict Evans recently criticised Elon Musk’s social media platform X, claiming that it has become ‘’a coordinating site for misinformation’’. Will Trump put a stop to it? Unlikely. Content moderation has got out of hand, across all social media platforms. However in Europe there is a serious attempt to deal with the problem.

When Trump regains power in January, hold on to your seat-belts. It will turn out to be a bumpy ride for almost everyone. We will no longer be able to relax inside the so-called relative safety of Europe. Revenge can be a sweet thing, for some.

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Ron Walsh Copyright 2024.