A Tipperary Trump fan

This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column.

Michael Commane
Is there a chance that you might suffer from TDS?

I never heard of it until the Saturday of the All-Ireland Kerry-Dublin football replay game.

Irish-American Alice Butler Short was interviewed by Marian Finucane for approximately 40 minutes on the Saturday morning. She hails from Cahir, Co Tipperary.

My head is still spinning from the interview. It was one of those radio moments when it’s close to impossible not to listen.

According to Alice I am one of those people who is afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS).

More or less, anyone who disagrees with Trump suffers from this malady. She cited people who disagree with his tweets or any words that flow from his mouth as TDS sufferers.

‘People don’t understand or know about him because of misinformation and lack of understanding.’ She was adamant that there is not a racist bone in his body. Alice referred to ‘fake news’ and said that 85 per cent of the media is against him.

She said this: ‘If he walked on water the papers would say he can’t swim’.

Alice sees how Trump has a good time at his rallies and it is at those rallies that people realise how brilliant he is. It is there, she says, that he touches the hearts of people.

She assured her listeners that Trump was full of love. She admires his strength, his determination and willingness “to give up the life of a billionaire to serve his country’.

Her conversion happened having attended a Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at which Donal Trump spoke. She heard all 16 presidential candidates speak. Alice went home prayed about it. She quoted a line – ‘He arose from the ashes of his despair’ and it was that that told her Trump was her man.

She recalled how the US was living in despair during the two terms of Barack Obama’s presidency and that the country would be in great danger had they elected Hilary Clinton as president because America would turn socialist.

She was insistent that the United States could never become a socialist country because of its constitution and that the country believes in small government.

Alice kept repeating the United States is a government of the people, by the people and for the people and that it is unique in that it is built on ideas.

She spoke how Trump has built up the economy and the military. When pressed about the current level of debt, there was a long pause before she said: ‘We may have, but debt goes up and goes down’.

On the following Monday I read Maureen Dowd’s ‘New York Times’ column where she talked about Trump being ‘one of the phoniest people ever to have walked the earth’. She described the Trump era as ‘a paradox wrapped in an oxymoron about a moron’.

I have heard Trump talk about losers, I have heard him use inappropriate words about people. These days he is calling Joe Biden ‘Sleepy Joe’.

Can you imagine if an Irish bishop, Catholic or Church of Ireland, expressed similar-type views as Alice Butler Short?

I can only imagine that it would still be making news headlines. The bishop would be considered to be daft.

A weird understanding of religion and wacky politics can far too easily bring out the worst in us.

On her website Ms Short says she is highlighting the intersection of spirituality and politics.

The biggest of rogues try to pass themselves off as mystics. Trump a mystic?

Strange times.