18th November 2024
As we move into the penultimate show of the year, it would be remiss not to have opened the show with the outcome of the US election and the resounding win for Donald Trump and the Republican party. Seamus Gunn our contributor made reference to the old Chinese proverb May you live in interesting times which he thought could be quite apt in interpreting the comprehensive victory. He recalled that in 2020 the Republicans lost 6 of the swing states while this time around they won all 7, such the margin of the victory. The polls were referred to in particular as to how they had it wrong in the evaluation of the 2 candidates, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, in saying that up to the 11th hour pundits were not prepared to call it.
He was of the view that it came down to Donald Trump pitting the economy and immigration against Kamala Harris representing democracy and women’s rights. Greg Hughes made the point that Trump secured significant women’s votes despite bad publicity, while Seamus Gunn’s thinking was that Donald Trump was able to muddy the waters on the abortion issue to leave the margin quite small in favour of Harris but that interestingly on Democracy the electorate was split 50/50.
He said that the key was the economy, that those people who were angry voted in their droves for the Republicans. He noted that the message from Trump was quite simple; “are you better off now or were you better off 4 years ago?” while he said that he engaged the young voters in promising no tax on tips, which he thought was nearly impossible to follow through on. Between that and serving McDonalds, this struck a common chord, while the Harris team could only follow suit on the no tax on tips but never came to terms with the simple economy message for which he had a free advertisement every time an individual went into a shop, i.e. people were better off 4 years ago. He also commented on the interpretation of the long ques of polls, which the Democrats thought were in their favour, but in fact it seemed to be the opposite.
While it is too early to forecast the fall out, our contributor referenced a potential dark cloud for Ireland if Trump followed through on his promise of 20% tariffs, mentioning that Ireland is a major exporter to the USA and the proposed reduction in the corporation tax rate to try to attract back the multi-nationals. Greg Hughes contended that multi-nationals are very well served in this country with young, dedicated and highly qualified staff, Seamus Gunn countering that they were the biggest single contributor to the Irish economy so if they left this would have serious consequences.
As the US segment came to a close, the questions and answers that followed covered various topics.