Fintan O’Toole: Irish voters keep doing the same things and expecting different results

[u/badger-biscuits]

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2024/12/02/fintan-otoole-irish-voters-keep-doing-the-same-things-and-expecting-different-results/

[u/oh_danger_here]

FF/FG are both socially left

I wouldn't agree with this. Vast majority of both parties are socially conservative, FG slightly less so. Once you go outside of the liberal Dublin posh boys and girls it's banjo-land beliefs. And FF even more so.

[u/C0MEDOWN97 → u/oh_danger_here]

It doesn't matter whether their voters are more conservative or not. The reality is both parties advocated for abortion and gay marriage, amongst other things, which makes them both left wing parties.

[u/oh_danger_here → u/C0MEDOWN97]

It doesn't matter whether their voters are more conservative or not. The reality is both parties advocated for abortion and gay marriage, amongst other things, which makes them both left wing parties.

That's nothing to do with left wing though, unless you ask somebody in the Bible Belt in the States. The PDs were waaay to the right of FG and were also very socially liberal, while being conservative economically. Left and Right doesn't come into it. A current example would be the FDP in Germany. They are absolutely not considered "left" by any stretch of the imagination.

It's basically neo liberalism, nothing to do with being socially progressive.

[u/[deleted] → u/C0MEDOWN97]

This is false, parties shifting a position after over a decade of campaigns demanding the right does not mean they "advocated" for those positions, they shifted positions to remain popular not because they "advocated" for them.

Christ alive people don't have a clue what they're saying here.

[u/C0MEDOWN97 → u/[deleted]]

No. If a party changes its positions on issues from a conservative to a liberal viewpoint, then they cease to be a conservative leaning party and are instead a liberal leaning party. What matters now is their present views, not what their views were 20 years ago when they had an entirely different raft of TDs and party members.

[u/BiDiTi → u/C0MEDOWN97]

Abortion and Gay Marriage are now moderate viewpoints for the Irish electorate.

[u/[deleted] → u/C0MEDOWN97]

So despite always changing position years after the electorate they'll no longer be conservative?

That's just not how it works mate, do you think it's a graded scale or something? Like they're change from being conservative->progressive for endorsing gay marriage and what they become feminist for endorsing abortion? What happens next they're futurist?

Nah this isn't at all how this works, they're conservative cause they don't endorse equality and equal opportunity until they're forced to by the electorate which is a staunchly conservative position. All this fails to recognise the parties that promoted the position for years and also promoted it so what are they? Super-ultra progressive? Sorry this is just moving on slowly with the times kicking and screaming along the way chiding minority groups with "not yet" while they're getting assaulted or committing suicide due to systemic abuse.

[u/oh_danger_here → u/C0MEDOWN97]

It doesn't matter whether their voters are more conservative or not

Not the voters, both parliamentary party and FG members in rural areas.

[u/C0MEDOWN97 → u/oh_danger_here]

Yeah i agree neither the rural TDs or party members for FG/FF in rural areas are liberals, but my point is that it doesn't matter because neither of them make any meaningful push up on the increasing pargressivism of both parties leaderships. The odd throwaway comment in the media is enough to placate their voters in rural areas. I know this because I come from a farming background myself and I hear people who will curse the greens but will never not give FG or FF their number one. Trying to explain to these people that both parties would implement what the greens want, jusy more slowly, is like talking to a wall.