Anyone else think Ireland is Totalitarian

[HayGal]

The presidential election shenanigans has made me wonder if we are now a totalitarian state rather than a democracy. Totalitarianism is where theres centralised control, suppression of opposition, propaganda to influence perception. It looks like we will only have candidates from the FF and FG because of how they control government as far as local government. The President is the last point where new laws can be stopped but if the president can only come from FF and FG who have a majority then its all up to them.
I know its a bit heavy for a Monday morning but somethings off about all this.

No, I don’t. Is this to do with Conor McGregor pulling out of the presidential election?

I do find us weirdly conformist in a very strange way though.

The Irish response to gender ideology has made me feel we are always on the look out for our next Catholic Church to moralise on.

No, and that's a really weird interpretation of the nominations process, especially given that Catherine Connolly has already pretty much got a nomination sorted and the parties aren't whipping the county councils so the probability is that there will be at least one other non-party candidate.

If what you're really annoyed about is that Conor McGregor probably won't be nominated, then maybe he shouldn't have been a rapist and spent a bit of time actually looking at the powers and responsibilities of the presidency.

Bizarre take on Irish politics.

We’ve only recently been released from the grip of a horrendous Theocracy. I believe we value freedom too much to let that happen.

Irish Water couldn’t even get us to comply.

I'm no fan of either FF or FG but they 'control government' because people voted for them.
I think it's likely that an independent candidate will be nominated through the local authority route. Although I don't find any of the candidates inspiring, I'm pretty satisfied with the process for nominating presidential candidates.
I'm glad you need more than the backing of a billionaire to be on the ticket.

Not for this, no, but I did see something about them wanting to crack down on mal-infomation, which is apparently information that is true, but could be harmful, and that has got me worried.

FG are whipping their party in the council's though. They've made it clear that the FG councillors are not to vote for an indo candidate.

They do so far seem to be the only party (openly anyway) doing so.

You can look at the democracy index on wikipedia. Ireland is doing better than the UK as a democracy and definitely better than the US which has been downgraded to a flawed democracy.

Happy to say its absolutely nothing to do with Conor McGregor. Wouldn't vote for him in a million years but I want to be able to vote for someone that is not owned by FF or FG.

Some opinions above are wrong. Both FF and FG have forbidden their local councillors from voting for non party candidates. There is no other way to get on the ballot paper. So in effect we do have a new theocracy, its just party politics is the head.

Joanna is that yourself?

What about SF/Labour/PBP/SDs?

What about independents in LAs/TDs?

People voted for FF FG candidates in the elections so they are happy with them but there are plenty of other potential routes if a person could gain the profile.

Apparently non party candidates might get through council's today. I just want to see options beyond established parties and then decide who to vote for.

Kerry have just voted to nominate Gareth Sheridan. Several more councils meeting today and this week

I think there will be at least one other non-party candidate. We do have lots of TDs from smaller parties/ independents so there are options to get enough support outside of FF/ FG.
I understood that FF hadn't banned their councillors from supporting anyone else, just 'hoped' they wouldn't.
I do agree re other comments on conformism and this proposed legislation on mal-information.
I'm not sure we value freedom quite as much as we might like to think.
We certainly have very few truly independent thinkers in the Dáil.
Perhaps the cosy consensus protects us from some of the extremism that we see in other countries but I'm not sure it is healthy overall.

@TheVeryThing worded much better than I did! That's it exactly, I don't think people realise how small steps in law can add up to losses in other ways. For example let's remember the referendum last year. An independent president is an important cog in that wheel.

I posted this on another thread but I think it would go well here too given how selective RTÉ and the daily papers have been in recent years about the topics they discuss/report:

I came across this info on TwiX yesterday and thought it would be of interest to folks on this thread. It feels like this proposal is similar to legislation that exists in Australia and that has been used successfully to silence and punish people espousing gender critical views:

https://gript.ie/irish-politicians-want-to-fight-true-but-harmful-info/

"The Irish Government has said it intends to target so-called “mal-information” — information that is factually true, but deemed “harmful” — as part of its new National Counter Disinformation Strategy.

This week, Communications Minister Patrick O’Donovan defended the move in an exchange with Gript, insisting that the Government must ensure citizens have access to what it considers “trusted sources” of news.

“I think within the world that we live in at the moment, it is important that the public, the citizens have access to information that they know is from a trusted source,” he said, adding that too much of what circulates online amounts to mere “gossip.”

The National Disinformation Strategy, published in April, was preceded by a public consultation in 2023. Of the 470 submissions received, 83% opposed the plan outright, with many respondents warning of censorship and threats to free speech. Only 11% supported the proposals — many of these from state-funded bodies, NGOs, and government departments. Despite this overwhelming opposition, the Government pressed ahead."

@UtopiaPlanitia wow thanks for sharing. I hadn't heard anything about that. Unfortunately we are depending on media outlets who blindly take press statements they are sent by government advisers and intersperse it with condolences they copy and paste from RIP and add in a sprinkling of gofundme pages for some sad cause or another. No one asks the hard questions or challenges.

The national media in Ireland has always been partisan. In the old days, you were an Irish Press family or and Irish Independent family, with a very small sprinkling of Irish Times families.

Nowadays you have access to a whole array of news sources, operating from different political angles or none, and it's actually easier than it was in the past to find dissenting opinions, weight them up, fact check them, and make your own mind up. Let's not forget that there are also books and articles to read, which refer to sources you can follow up and weigh up.

The spanner in the works is social media, when any old madey-uppy guff can get presented as 'fact' - in fact, when you see someone on SM starting a statement with 'FACT:' it's a red flag, because it probably isn't.

Another thing that happens a lot these days is people using words in a very exaggerated way - trans rights activists saying they are the victims of 'literal genocide' for example, or people claiming that Ireland has a 'third world health system' - both of these are insulting to people suffering actual genocide, or people suffering and dying where there is no health system at all.

I think 'Ireland is totalitarian' falls into this category: we are a parliamentary democracy, with a written constitution, which runs fair and open elections - yes they are free and fair, despite some groups casting aspersions on the people who run our elections to try to undermine their validity.

We may not like some of the people who put themselves forward for election, but that's not the same as not having free elections.

So no, OP, I do not think Ireland is even remotely a totalitarian state, in the accepted meaning of 'totalitarian'

When was the last time a Fine Gael or Fianna Fail shoo in won the presidency? None of the last three presidents of Ireland came from either party and in fact the general trend is that the FG/FF candidate has not been popular with the electorate. The system clearly allows for non-establishment candidates. If no viable independent candidates stand, it's hardly FG/FF's fault?

The first confirmed candidate was an independent - Catherine Connolly.

so there will be at least 3 names on the ballot sheet. And the FF name is not a former Minister or TD, but more akin to som either nominees of the past like Mary Robinson or Mary McAleese (particularly Mary Mc -Mary R had been a senator but I don’t think she was still a senator when she stood).

Presidential elections are often quite restricted in the number of candidates, partly due to the nomination options - which have not changed for a long, long time.

😀

Cop on, OP. Look at the far-right parties being elected elsewhere. Pootling around in largely indistinguishable centrist parties is far from the worst that can happen.

These pootling, largely indistinguishable centrist parties are determined to bring in curbs on free speech and free discussion via this mal-information legislation and/or hate crime legislation.

We don't have much of a far right here in Ireland but we do have a lot of fed up and disaffected citizens who feel that no-one in government or the media listens to them. And from their behaviour, our politicians, rather than listen to the voters, are concentrating on trying to shut them up.

I've lived through decades of Irish politicians and (largely middle-class) Irish media refusing to discuss topics they don't like which is why we ended up with so many national scandals taking decades to be unearthed and reported on. This refusal to deal with a wide range of issues means that Irish people who see things happening in front of them but also see the media and government ignoring these issues lose trust in their elected representatives and also go elsewhere for their information.

The best way to stop people from being disaffected is to be responsive to their problems and to discuss things in public rather than trying to suppress topics that make journalists and politicians uncomfortable.

@MarieDeGournay the use of terminology is subjective. But I would be interested in suggestions you might have for media outlets that dont simply report government soundbites and at least sometimes challenge the government narrative.

@UtopiaPlanitia 100% agree

Totalitarian? Have you even the slightest grasp of history? Ireland is an (imperfect) democracy which very thankfully has not swung wildly in either right or left orientation in recent decades. (Mis)using incendiary and hyperbolic language such as 'totalitarian' is exactly the kind of thing which feeds these swings which as we all know, rarely if ever end up anything but shit for ordinary people.

The way the Presidential nomination is being 'managed' has raised some questions for me. Like @HayGal I wouldn't touch Conor McGregor with a 20ft pole. However, seeing candidates struggling to get nominations because FF & FG have blocked their councillors from supporting other candidates is worrying. Same applies to the Seanad. Only those who went to certain universities and politicians have a say in who is represented in that chamber.
That is not democracy.