Fintan O’Toole: Casey didn’t create an audience – it found him

When I was a child, there was a fad for good news/bad news jokes. The dentist tells the patient: “I have good news and bad news. The good news is that your teeth are perfect. The bad news is that your gums will have to come out.”

The balance in the presidential election results is rather more on the positive side than that. But we do have to acknowledge this is a silver lining with more than a little cloud.

The election tells us that Ireland likes to think of itself as a progressive, decent, thoughtful society. It also tells us this self-image is rather more fragile than we like to acknowledge.

First the good news.

President Michael D Higgins vows to ‘represent Ireland’s voice’ over next seven years

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Micheál Martin pours cold water on Casey’s plan to join Fianna Fáil

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Presidential campaign key points: Traveller comments, expenses and jets

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Three in four emigrants surveyed would have voted for Michael D Higgins

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For the third presidential election in a row, we have freely chosen as head of state a distinguished public intellectual who combines a passion for ideas with a sense of warmth and of personal dignity.

Two of those elected - Mary Robinson and Michael D Higgins - are upfront, unapologetic democratic socialists.

The third, Mary McAleese was deeply animated by human rights and social justice. This is a remarkable fact in a State that has never had a left-of-centre government, but it suggests that ideas of fairness, equality and inclusion run deep in the society even if they are not well articulated in the governing culture.

This election is, of course, a personal triumph for Higgins who has received the largest personal mandate in the history of the State.

Validated

His second term has been validated and he can continue to conduct a remarkable public critique of neoliberalism and its devastating consequences for democracy in the knowledge that he has the backing of the people.

For all the anti-intellectual sneering he has had to endure, the plain fact is that citizens have heard what he has to say and are happy for him to go on saying it.

And this is more than a parochial matter.

We are witnessing the breakdown of civility, rationality and dignity in politics worldwide, the rise of the boor and the blowhard.

In a pre-fascist environment, it matters that Ireland has a democratic voice that is serious, engaged and committed to the belief that democracy itself can rise above sloganeering, hate-mongering and mass manipulation.

It would be foolish to exaggerate the significance of Casey's vote - and just as foolish to ignore it

It is easy to mock Higgins for taking himself seriously. In an era of clowns and showmen, of deadly serious threats to civilisation, it matters greatly that he does so.

And it matters that a small country, in giving him such a ringing endorsement, thinks so too.

The bad news

The bad news is that we have also been reminded of exactly why we need to be serious about the vulnerability of our democracy.

We have no room for complacency, no cause to think of ourselves as an island of civility in a sea of populist rancour. It would be foolish to exaggerate the significance of Peter Casey’s vote - and just as foolish to ignore it.

For all his own denials that his attacks on Travellers had anything to do with his late surge, what happened is plainly obvious.

He decided to save his floundering campaign by picking at the scab of Ireland’s deepest prejudice. His rivals, to their great credit, refused to follow him. He flourished, they suffered.

There is a false comfort in the fact that Casey is less Donald Trump, more the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz.

He is incoherent, unfocussed, a golf club bore. But this is exactly what should worry us: if so poor a candidate can thrive merely by pressing on the nerve of anti-Traveller prejudice, what could a more impressive one do?

Casey didn’t create an audience - the audience found him. A significant number of voters were waiting for an opportunity to participate in the politics of spleen that have swept across the democratic world.

This should not come as a surprise. We know from the results of the blasphemy referendum, as we did from the referendums on abortion and same-sex marriage, that Ireland is a two-thirds/one-third society: two-thirds broadly happy with liberal values and an ethic of inclusiveness but one-third deeply unhappy with the way Ireland has changed.

Especially among older and more rural voters, there is a significant reservoir of discontent and alienation, a sense of loss that is not dissimilar to the emotions powering reactionary movements across the globe.

So even if the presidential election was dull, predictable and poorly conducted, its results have reminded that there is, after all, a great deal at stake.

The mood of the times is volatile, febrile and potentially toxic. The presidency, for all its limitations, is a good mirror of our collective self-image.

For countries, as for people, having high expectations for themselves is a powerful shield against barbarism.

Higgins sets a high standard of decency and dignity, of justice and care. These are, it seems, still the things we want to see when we look in the mirror and that is a reason to be proud of our democracy.

But the mirror also shows a shadow behind the main image. One of the tasks of this renewed presidency will be to challenge us all to make sure the shadow does not grow deeper.