What is Fine Gael’s message beyond bashing Sinn Féin?

The Leo Varadkar confidence vote debate last week has been rightly characterised as a turning point in Irish political discourse. One wonders how we will turn back.

Jungian psychoanalysis would depict Sinn Féin as Fine Gael’s shadow. Pretty much every basis Fine Gael attacks Sinn Féin on, is an unconscious part of their own identity they cannot recognise in themselves. They attack Sinn Féin on the party’s wealth, as if the pursuit of wealth, and a reliance on wealthy voters, is not intrinsic to Fine Gael.

They attack Sinn Féin on vested interests, on people behind the scenes pulling strings, as if we’re meant to ignore the Fine Gael-lobbyist pipeline. They attack Sinn Féin on divisive discourse, while leaning into divisive rhetoric themselves.

They attack Sinn Féin for stoking a culture of “trolling” and online attacks, despite Fine Gael’s online communication frequently scraping the bottom of the barrel. They attack Sinn Féin on populism, while utilising the aesthetic of both influencer culture and almost Trumpian attack ad videos. They attack Sinn Féin for increasing the temperature in public discourse, yet light fires all of their own. They criticise Sinn Féin for a lack of in-party dissent, yet embark upon a sycophantic Dear Leader-style endorsement of Varadkar not seen in the Dáil since Gerry Adams was present.

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That is not to say, of course, that the content of such criticisms of Sinn Féin are without merit, but Fine Gael doesn’t have a leg to stand on in leading these critiques, particularly regarding the manner in which they’re trying to communicate them.

Strategic failure

This lack of standpoint credibility is just one of the reasons that Fine Gael’s communication efforts online continue to be a monumental strategic failure. Sinn Féin living rent free in Fine Gael’s head is now an entire meme ecosystem, and yet they continue this failed tactic of obsessively attacking Sinn Féin.

The Spinal Tap-style rhetoric – always turned up to 11 – of Sinn Féin is running out of road, yet Fine Gael’s obsession has allowed Sinn Féin to stay relevant, even when their stance in opposition has actually faltered.

On one hand, we have Fine Gael pumping out vanilla influencer content – Richard Bruton baking scones – and on the other, attack ads

What a joy it must be to be working in comms these days for Sinn Féin, when all you have to do is sit back and watch Fine Gael attempt to lob their latest water balloon only to watch it burst all over themselves before it’s even airborne. When no one is even talking about Sinn Féin, you can bet Fine Gael has another awful video in the works, content that maybe appeals to Young Fine Gael and no one else. Talk about an echo chamber.

If you are rolling out a digital communications strategy, it has to be many things, but one of the elements it needs is tonal cohesion. Yet on one hand, we have Fine Gael pumping out vanilla influencer content – Richard Bruton baking scones – and on the other, attack ads annoying the reasonable part of a public which has no desire to see political discourse debased in this way.

“I never buy things off sales people who spend all their time slagging off the opposition. I’d apply that same logic to politicians,” the coffee entrepreneur Colin Harmon tweeted about the latest Fine Gael video featuring Senator Barry Ward, a cringe-worthy “reaction video” of Ward acting wryly aghast about the €4 million donation Sinn Féin received.

Self-made blunder

What is Fine Gael’s message beyond criticising Sinn Féin? And why do they keep at it when it’s not working? Almost every attack tweet gets ratioed. Every video gets slagged to bits. This strategy failed before the 2020 election, it failed during the campaign, and it’s failing now.

If anything, it’s driving more and more younger people towards Sinn Féin, the same generation who became politicised through bipartisan grassroots activism, imbued with an understanding of the importance of building alliances, civility, reaching the middle ground, and leading with empathy.

What was barely spoken about by Fine Gael politicians during that debate was the underlying oddness of Varadkar’s actions, which led to the confidence vote and surrounding football terrace-esque “who are ya” debate. Fine Gael did not address the central contradiction in Varadkar’s defence.

Varadkar claims that Dr Maitiú Ó Tuathail overstated his access to the then taoiseach. The problem for Varadkar is that it’s quite hard to convince people of that when he actually affirmed that access, and indeed Ó Tuathail’s perception of it, when he leaked a confidential document to the GP.

How can you then turn around and claim this person was misguided in bragging about their closeness to you, when that closeness appears to have played out? It doesn’t make sense. If Ó Tuathail was over-inflating his access to the then taoiseach – as Varadkar claims – he would never have got his hands on that document.

He was able to brag about his access to Varadkar because he did have an inside track. Perhaps it’s no wonder Fine Gael looks to distract from events, when the self-made blunder of their leader is so puzzling.