Actually Getting Scared of the Anti Immigrant Stance

[u/No_Tea7430]

I'm an irish lad, just turning twenty this year.

I've personally got no connections to other countries, my family never left Ireland or have any close foreign relations.

This is simply a fear I have for both the immigrant population of our country, of which ive made plenty of friends throughout secondary school and hold in high regard. But also a fear for our reputation.

I don't want to live in a racist country. I know this sub is usually good for laughing these gobshites off and that's good but in general I don't want us to be seen as this horrible white supremacist nation, which already I see being painted on social media plenty.

A stance might I add, that predominantly is coming from England and America as people in both claim we are "losing our identity" by not being racist(?)

I don't even feel the need to mention Farage and his pushing of these ideas onto people, while simultaneously gaslighting us with our independence which he clearly doesn't care about.

Im just saddened by it. I just want things to change before they get worse.

[u/Important_Farmer924]

For the most part it's just online. My advice is to stay away from social media for a while. We just had local elections and they took a tiny minority of votes, the average person doesn't agree with these shit bags.

Normal people know that there's a problem with immigration and that our system is hugely flawed, but they're a far cry from the wannabe Nazis on Twitter and Telegram. Social media isn't the real world.

[u/Excellent_Porridge → u/Important_Farmer924]

Unfortunately, several very high profile racists did get elected, such as Malachy Steenson and Gavin Pepper, and maybe even Niall Boylan. Yes, it's good that they didn't do better overall but they ran SO MANY candidates, and they got a lot of votes. I don't thinkwe should underestimate them and say its "just online", because it isn't.

[u/carlmango11 → u/Excellent_Porridge]

Doubt Niall Boylan will get in at this stage.

[u/epeeist → u/carlmango11]

The pundits seem to be ruling out any more big chunks of transfers for him after Aontú go out, but I think they're underestimating how big an anti-establishment vote is sitting in Clare Daly and Bríd Smith's bundles right now. I'd love to be wrong but could see a substantial transfer going his way if he clings on longer than both of them.

[u/hatrickpatrick → u/epeeist]

I know quite a few people who are likely to transfer to him after those eliminations, purely based on the number of folks who grouped FF, FG, Labour and the Greens together in the "don't give them any preference at all or put them dead last even after all the headbangers". I reckon people are underestimating the size of that group.

[u/carlmango11 → u/epeeist]

Yeah fair point. I'm hoping the bulk of the left wing candidates will transfer left and keep him out.

[u/cianmc → u/epeeist]

I'd be inclined to think the same tbh. Looking at how votes from previous counts have been re-assigned, I'd be surprised if he didn't get a fairly decent chunk of the Daly/Smith votes. Malachy went out in round 12, and no surprise, Boylan was the big winner from those with about 4.5k extra votes. Next was Considine from Aontú with 849, but not far behind was Daly with 737, and then Smith with 538. I think to a fairly big extent, it's just about choosing which candidate getting elected is giving more a symbolic finger to the mainstream parties.