If no party from the left agrees to work with the “civil war parties,” it would be due in part to the terrible outcomes that have befallen any small party to have done so in the past.
Annihilation on the left
Since Fianna Fáil’s half-century of political dominance ended in the 1980s and multi-party coalitions became the Irish norm, smaller parties that entered government have without exception been crushed by voters in the following election.
This brutal pattern was just repeated. In 2020, when Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael needed a substantial third party to forge a majority, it persuaded the dozen lawmakers of the environmentalist Greens to join their coalition.
On Nov. 29, voters annihilated the Greens, dumping all of their lawmakers bar Roderic O’Gorman, who barely scraped home, winning the last available seat in his constituency.
Now it could be the turn of one or more left-of-center parties on the rise: Labour, a veteran of coalition entries and electoral slaughters, or the fledgling Social Democrats, a Labour breakaway more hostile to cooperation with the old guard. Both won 11 seats, more than enough to give the next government numerical strength.
Notably, however, these left-wing parties are also the most critical of Trump. Harris and Martin, by contrast, have avoided uttering a single syllable in criticism of Trump since his election victory last month.
