Una Mullally: Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael exposed as intellectually dead

For those of us who don’t work in hospitals or congregated care settings, and for those of us who have not experienced the discombobulating grief this pandemic is visiting with great brutality upon the nation, conceptualising the Covid-19 crisis remains a surreal endeavour.

So much of what is occurring is happening “out there”, invisible to those who remain unaffected. And so we think, and we imagine, and we try to visualise the unseen.

Part of this imagining process is about proposing ideas for exiting lockdown. Another part is imagining what the great 21st-century depression will look and feel like. Of course, we have experienced a devastating recession more than a decade ago.

And in that recession, some good things grew from the fissures of an economy smashed into smithereens. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil want the prize. But we can now also imagine how to leave those relics behind

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Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil want the prize. But we can now also imagine how to leave those relics behind

They happened when people with nothing to lose pursued their passions when former careers were prematurely ended, and when commercial rents collapsed, prompting a culture of “meanwhile” use where interesting food and creative projects blossomed.

The happy accidents that emerged from the recession were commodified or penalised into extinction. That is sad but it’s also understandable. We didn’t have the tools, vocabulary or mechanisms to stop the market squashing or making bland everything that wasn’t rooted solely in the pursuit of profit.

But while that was a loss, it was also a learning curve. This time we’ll know how to preserve the good things that come out of a bad time, or at the very least we’ll recognise what’s happening and why, and understand the urgency that is required to prevent them being temporary.

In this pre-emptive scramble, there are attempts at government formation. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil want the prize. But we can now also imagine how to leave those relics behind. As we realise the things that societies need – a single-tier health service, free childcare, a welfare system that supports people instead of penalising them – we will also realise the things we don’t need, such as the domineering legacy of centre-right parties.

Intellectually dead

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will probably form a government with a motley crew of Independents, and it will in effect be an extension of the current caretaker government – a transitionary phase before the new era of Irish politics begins with leftwing parties in charge.

Both parties are in their twilight years, as they are intellectually and philosophically dead. Just because this extinction hasn’t played itself out in practical terms, doesn’t mean it’s not real in the “thinking” space.

When you have no new ideas, when you can’t build movements, when you can’t connect with people, it’s over.

Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil rely intensely on spin. When mass tragedy causes the scales to fall, their irrelevance and tired tactics are exposed

Perhaps there will be something to be milked from this, their reunion tour, but for the most part, the fans have moved on.

Would you really gravitate towards Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil for radical thinking? For genuine innovation? For dynamism? Of course not.

What has been interesting about the large-scale confinement our population is experiencing is how it has liberated us in certain ways. The self-reflection this environment is instigating is perhaps allowing us to question broader narratives and imposed “truths”.

In a normal situation, the vagueness of the Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael prenup framework document would perhaps be interrogated less. But like Instagram influencers battling for relevance when vacuousness is exposed by the seriousness of the moment, a rejection of frivolousness appears to extend to politics.

Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are parties that rely intensely on spin. When mass tragedy causes the scales to fall, their irrelevance and tired tactics are exposed.

This is a moment where people are connecting with deeper meanings, leaving the mangling of language in Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil’s document, with its fake outlining of “vibrant”, “dynamic” and “innovative” policy aims, floating in the ether, a ghost of nonsenses past.

Accepting this bumf as a normal or natural part of the theatre of political parties is something that happened before this crisis. Instead, the theatre has been exposed as a charade.

Once again, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are trying to lean into the tools they utilised in the past, without realising that we have passed them out, and are way ahead of them.

Existential threat

Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are attempting to form a government no one asked for. They want in. Trying to jimmy open a space to carry on as usual is inevitable for two parties who perceive their loss of power as an existential threat.

When all you really care about is being in power, and when one’s identity is rooted in self-gifted authority and the role of “being in charge”, losing that leaves you with . . . what?

Trying on the policies of different parties like a younger sibling raiding the wardrobe of their older, more stylish sister has left Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil attempting to present themselves as emerging fresh from a makeover.

But in reality they’re clacking down the street waving a fake ID in heels three sizes too big. And like any bouncer worth their salt, we can see them coming a mile off. So as we progress through this moment, what do we keep and what do we leave behind?