I'm gutted by the news that Donald Trump has been re-elected.

There will be an election in Ireland in a few weeks' time, and many of the candidates have declared already. As soon as I get a postal address for them, I'll be sending the following to each:

A chara,

I understand from the RTÉ website that you have declared your intention to run for election to Dáil Éireann in the next few weeks.

I am writing this on the 6th November, as I struggle to comprehend Donald Trump's re-election as U.S. President.

This is devastating news. I believe that many hundreds of thousands – maybe millions – of people will die over the course of his new administration as a direct result of his policies, and that a great many more will otherwuse suffer dreadfully:

• He has vowed to end the war in Ukraine on his first day as re-elected president, which can only mean forcing Ukraine to capitulate – Donald Trump has no ability to influence Vladimir Putin and will therefore not force terms on Russia. Many thousands of people will die in the following weeks, and maybe 100,000s of people in the following years.
• He has encouraged Benjamin Netanyahu to "finish the job" in Gaza, which can only mean total annihilation of Gaza as a Palestinian region and its complete occupation by Israel. This can only be done with the displacement or murder of millions of people, and now that he's President we can expect him to support this goal.
• He has a policy plan to deport millions of immigrants. While he asserts they are not legally resident in the U.S., we remember how he treated legal immigrants during his first adminstration. No one will make me believe that anyone was made safer by separating small children from their parents and putting them in cages. I expect that he will not succeed in deporting millions; ultimately the economic damage that will result from the first round of deportations will be too much for even his most rabid billionaire supporters to stomach. However, I fully expect many will be killed in his attempts.

Leaving aside his plans that will result in horrific suffering, we should not forget what type of man he is:

• He has been convicted of criminal offences (fraud), and he has been adjudicated as having committed sexual assault, even to the point that a judge has asserted he raped a woman. While they have not been aired in court, there are many other allegations of sexual assault against him, and – as would be the case in all manners of similar consideraions – there's no smoke without fire.
• He targeted and demonised vulnerable minority sections of society, particularly transgender people, as part of his election campaign with no regard for the risk he posed to innocent people from his own supporters.

Already, I am reading about how so-called "liberal" politicians, such as An Taoiseach Simon Harris, are congratulating Mr Trump on his success. Others are advising us that there are potential positives for Ireland and beyond from Trump being in office.

I'm calling nonsense.

The cult of civility that prevails in modern political discourse in Ireland prevents me from using what I feel are more appropriate words.

Donald Trump is a fascist. As the modern cultural meme goes, "we do not, under any circumstances, 'gotta hand it to [him]'". Project 2025, which is the policy platform his team ran him on, is a fascist playbook. There is nothing good that will come from the 2025-2029 U.S. federal administration that was not going to come from an administration led by Kamala Harris. The best we will see are the efforts of those who will resist his evil.

I firmly believe that any statement more supportive of Donald Trump than "we need to monitor the situation, and prepare ourselves and our society for the worst" is a statement of support for his fascism.

If you, as a politician, are not fully on board with resisting Donald Trump's evil, then I must infer that you are a supporter, or – at best – an enabler of fascism, and I will bring that inference into the voting booth with me in a few weeks' time.

I look forward to hearing or reading your outright condemnation of what Donald Trump stands for and your intention to work to ensure Ireland will not be tainted by any form of support for Mr. Trump's evil.

Is mise,