Astonished, flabbergasted, furious, and appalled: AFFA.

This reaction to a scandal a couple of years ago by an Irish politician was memorable and reminiscent of another four-letter Irish political acronym, GUBU, coined in 1982 by Charlie Haughey in describing a situation as: Grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre, and unprecedented:  GUBU.

These acronyms are applicable in a wide range of circumstances in 2026. When Venezuela’s president is kidnapped, Greenland and NATO are threatened, Ukraine is abandoned, the Palestinians are forgotten, or Iran is exploding under authoritarian rule and foreign attack, it is difficult to feel anything other than “astonished, flabbergasted, furious, and appalled” by events that are “grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented.”

To say, “I’m AFFA by this GUBU situation” seems accurate more often than not.  They also bring to mind the American acronyms SNAFU and FUBAR from a wartime past when the USA was confident enough to be self-effacing.

How the world looks sometimes depends on where you are standing. The Irish and the Irish diaspora from Mark Carney to Steve Bannon have radically different perspectives and interpretations of what it means to be of Irish descent in 2026.

The View from the

Top of the World: Davos

Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, seized the international spotlight at the world economic forum in Davos with the cold logic and precision of a trained banker and risk manager. Carney is the poster child of the highly educated uber meritocracy:  Harvard educated (on scholarship) Goldman Sachs trained, neoliberal central banker, multilingual holder of 3 passports (including Ireland’s) who easily quoted Thucydides in his speech.  Carney has emerged as an unlikely champion of the anti-Maga.  In Ireland, he is claimed as “one of our own.” Two of his grandparents came from Mayo and one came from Cavan.  The Irish maintain that his banking genes must be from Cavan.

During his surgical, sangfroid, flaying of Trump’s policies and approach, Carney never mentioned Trump’s name.  No need. Trump has been in everyone’s head now for over a decade since he descended on that godforsaken escalator.  Back then it seemed like a bad joke: incoherent ramblings, naked racism, misogyny, and ignorance would surely be disqualifying.  Alas, no. The joke has been on all of us.

Twelve months into Trump II, the sophisticated elites further enriched by Trump’s chaos and cartoonishly represented by Davos have abandoned hope that America will return to its former leadership even after this presidency ends. There is no loyalty among thieves and Carney represents a lifeboat to a multipolar world in which “middle powers calibrate relationships” and build a new order. To dance with the elephants (the USA, China, and Russia) will require skill and nimbleness.

Carney is to be applauded for standing firm. That said, while the elites plan how to construct a new world order, the working classes everywhere (in America, Ireland, and beyond) struggle with the high cost of living and pressure from a form of financialized capitalism that inexorably transfers money upward from the poor to the rich like a bizarro-world Robin Hood. The poor of the global south who bear the brunt of climate disasters are rarely mentioned.

My View

There have been moments over the decades when I have felt America had utterly lost its way at home and around the world.  How could the racist Willie Horton ad campaign in ‘88 actually work? How could Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney convince the country – including the New York Times – that we should go to war in Iraq? How could George Floyd’s murder be followed by a defeat of the John Lewis voting rights bill? Or the #metoo movement be followed by the rolling back of Roe v. Wade?

So… the feeling of “AFFA” by American policies that are “GUBU” is familiar, but over these last 12 months I take no joy in writing that the bottom has fallen out.  When I meet other Americans who have also moved to Europe, I hear the consistent refrain that the USA we knew is gone and is not coming back. American emigrants (“expats” is just a posh euphemism) share bewilderment, despair, and resignation. For some the move was considered temporary, an attempt to avoid the worst of the debacle, and to go back when the coast was clear. Over the last year American requests for Irish visas and passports are up 97 percent. This rush is known in Ireland as the “Donald Dash.”

Like most sequels, Trump II is clearly worse than his first foray into governing. The ransacking of the US has been comprehensive: DOGE’s dismembering of the government, the dismantling of USAID, RFK Jr’s gutting of the HHS and CDC, the longest government shutdown in history, a sustained assault on higher education, the physical destruction of the White House, the deployment of a state sponsored terrorist organization, ICE.  Each of these crises, and many more, remain serious but some seem like distant memories now.  With the crush of daily atrocities, catastrophes, abominations, and disasters (maybe a new acronym: ACAD?), a numbness can set in.  I feel “AFFA” that the Kennedy Center was renamed and soon to be shuttered but more so that a VA nurse was murdered by ICE on TV.

The mainstream media (if it still exists) has been reduced to the role of stenographers of the apocalypse, publishing “how it unfolded” accounts of the latest “ACAD.”

The view from Europe

I met a professor for the Pratt Institute of Brooklyn at an American event in Paris recently.  After a 25-year career in New York, she has returned to France.  She explained that even though art schools like Pratt have not suffered directly from Trump’s extortion of Harvard, Columbia, and others, foreign students are not returning, or not applying.  According to this professor, enrollment is down 30 percent.  For schools like Pratt that live on tuition dollars rather than endowments, the results are “catastrophic,” she said.

America’s elite schools have been the pride of American education for generations. Scholars from around the world attend these institutions and return to their home countries not only with a fine education but also with a network of contacts for careers in business, law, and government. The “soft power” advantage to the USA was that these students (including Mark Carney) were invested at some level in the success of the American project. By withholding research funding, repealing DEI initiatives, and deporting foreign students, the harm done to America by the Trump presidencies is incalculable.

For Europeans, America has traveled quickly on a trajectory from trusted friend and ally to adversary, steps away from being considered an outright enemy.  The French press reports that  “America is returning to its roots of colonialism and racism.”  The shock that this criticism comes from a former colonial power that still struggles with racism itself does not negate its essential truth.

A German colleague on his way to DC texted me that he was headed to “ the heart of the evil empire.” Surprising words from a grandson of the Nazi generation, but when you see the ICE raids in Minneapolis or Worcester, the extrajudicial killings of alleged drug smugglers on boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific, and the cynical pardoning of a Honduran politician whio had been convicted as a drug smuggler, it is hard to argue with him.  America is no longer the quirky neighbor with the weird ideas but an active menace. European countries face the choice of vassalization to a techno-fascist America, submission to China, or building something new.

The view from Ireland

Where does the recalibrated world leave Ireland?   If the world order is truly being rearranged, small countries are the most vulnerable. In the short term, Ireland must balance cooperation with America and deepen relationships with the EU, China, and the global south. Trump’s behavior has reignited the annual debate over the St. Patrick’s Day visit to the Oval Office.  Some suggest that the event be boycotted on this end . Everyone expresses concern that Taoiseach Micheal Martin will be ‘Zelenskied’ (that is, ambushed) by Trump and his toadies. Who knows what lizard-brain grievances the Trump team will unleash on the cautious Irish leader. Bullies are strong with the weak and weak with the strong.  Ireland, with no military power, and a recent prosperity dependent on US directed foreign investment, is the perfect target for a gangster.

Convicted felon Steve Bannon is determined to exploit and amplify nascent right wing anti-immigrant sentiment in Ireland and to ultimately find an Irish Trump.  Bannon’s Irish ancestors moved from Cork to Virginia in the mid 20th century, and were JFK supporters and Democrats.  Bannon served in the military and became radicalized during Ronald Reagan’s terms and his time as an investment banker and Hollywood producer.  He emerged as a key architect of Brexit and the Maga movement through his ability to provoke and harness the resentments of the working class from which he sprang: hard-working churchgoers who honored military service who got shafted by globalization.

Bannon channeled the anger of those who rarely vote to turn out for Trump in the same way he enraged English nationalists on the Brexit referendum.  Now he wants to do it again… in Ireland.  Many observers say – correctly – that Ireland is increasingly progressive, that Bannon is ignorant of the country’s long struggle for justice, and predict that his effort will fail.  I hope that is true but it would be naive to discount the possibility of a right-wing movement in Ireland.

I have met some of the “Ireland is full” crowd on the streets of Dublin. They feel betrayed by successive governments’ ineffective efforts to address the high cost of living, especially in housing, which has forced many to postpone normal milestones in life:  moving out, marriage, children.  This has coincided with a new Irish phenomenon: immigration to Ireland, mostly from the global south but also from eastern Europe, notably Ukraine.

The “Ireland is full” brigade confronts anti-racism groups on O’Connell Street by chanting that the only racism in Ireland is against the Irish. I have observed their rallies at close range and been surprised by the sizable crowds they muster.  There are many more Irish who welcome immigrants but the “Ireland is full” crew has certain advantages: 1) rage, 2) a willingness to use violence.  The angry mob that torched Dublin buses, shops, and tramways in November 2023 or that conducted arson attacks on buildings designated for asylum seekers, demonstrate the depths they are willing to go. They resemble the January 6th mob in the US:  angry for some valid reasons, misguided and easy to manipulate – Bannon’s bread and butter. Add a charismatic leader and a spark – like a dramatic downturn in the economy – and the result could be dangerous. For his part, US Ambassador Ed Walsh, whose principal qualifications are wealth, playing golf well, and the instinctive sycophancy to let Trump cheat at the game and win, is actively cultivating right-wing activists in Ireland ,which is in itself “GUBU.”

The far-right threat to Ireland is real. Weirdly, while the world frays into a new, multipolar order, the chances for an Irish unity referendum might improve. The extreme rightist, Nigel Farage, the possible next UK prime minister, cares nothing for Ireland and would gladly dump Northern Ireland at the first opportunity. Ironically, the fear that a home-grown far-right party emerges in Ireland might be aided by reunification. Incorporating the six counties into the Irish Republic would bring hundreds of thousands of freshly aggrieved, Loyalist, fundamentalist Christians into Irish politics.  An unholy alliance of “Ireland is full,” Orange Loyalists, and Farage’s racist Little Englanders has already appeared on the streets of Dublin and Belfast and misusing the tricolor as a symbol of hatred. Maga in the US has shown they are willing to kill and die for their warped ideas.  What will happen in Ireland if the right wing gains in strength?