WTF, National Party
Yes. Inflammatory title to grab attention, but seriously – what the fuck?
I’m re-emerging from over a year of what some call the Black Pill where I didn’t give a hot damn because this country is done for. I see hope on the horizon with things like Generation Identity Ireland kicking off and paradigm-smashers like Kevin Sharkey getting national media exposure, but I’m ever-more pissed off with jokes like Identity Ireland and The National Party. I have to be more critical of them now that the bar is being set higher and the standard-setters are framing the national conversation for us. It’s time for us all to be more critical and more expecting of anyone who draws a crowd, thousands in monetary support, and claims to want to save the country. Time for us to grow up and wake up to our position in history.
What got my goat was seeing The NP proudly show off their new campaign posters on social media – campaign posters for a “No” vote on repealing the 8th. Forget your own opinion for a moment and look at this objectively. Is it wise for a political fringe party with absolutely no media reach, only a few hundred members, and limited funds, to jump on the most divisive issue in the country right now? Would you call that a strategic move for a party that wants to build a broad political movement to reclaim the country from mass immigration and Internationalist manipulation? Of course it isn’t. This was clearly a whimsical idea cooked up after the 3rd pint after a conference. The tragedy is that the drunk who came up with this idea had thousands of Euro and dozens of footsoldiers at their disposal, so it actually materialized.
I’ve been seeing pro-life posters here and there in West Ireland and I ignore them like I ignore the Repeal posters. They have absolutely no use in terms of a national conversation or triggering an individual to contemplate the issue. The only purpose posters serve, to quote a friend, is to remind the people who agree with you to show up and vote. Everyone’s heard the talking points. They’re not going to start making sense because you see them 20 times on your way to work. There was one exception though – and to give you an idea of my position, I don’t give a fuck either way. You people can go right ahead and commit genetic suicide. See if I care. I was, however, triggered to rethink my position by a poster declaring the factual statistic that 1 in 5 pregnancies end in abortion in England. I looked this statistic up on my phone, and sure enough it’s a fact – and what’s more is that less than 4% of Irish people are aware of this, with the majority polled thinking abortions are rare events. For once a poster got me thinking. The standard has now been set. Do the National Party posters meet that standard? Not by a long shot.
Pictured on-screen now – a poster only No voters will notice.
First impression – they’re grotesque. The colour scheme is the opposite of attractive – it looks like what an alcoholic leaves behind in the toilet after a rough weekend. For a poster proposing to protect life, it clearly has none of its own. I had no idea you could make a street light uglier, but there you go. Think about it, this is the first impression most people will have of the National Party: a shit-coloured poster yelling commands, making no connection whatsoever to the average Irishman.
The slogans themselves are crude and braindead. I could have written better after necking a bottle of whiskey. The lack of wit, imagination, and forethought is an insult to us all as Human Beings and God’s highest creation. Nobody on the fence is going to be impressed by statements like: “Babies will die” because we already know babies will die. We get it. Your perspective has been made clear to all of us for the past 40 years. Tell us something new. These are straight out of the recycling bin of the 1983 referendum, as if the psychological and political landscape hadn’t changed in those 35 years.
Then we have the website abortionnever.ie which leads to a single page with two embedded YouTube videos of speeches and a link to the NP’s own website at the top. Now the agenda is clear. Just like the design and like the slogans, absolutely no imagination has gone into the website or presenting an argument that’s understandable by the common man. Just an advert for Fuhrer Justin Barrett and the NP. What the fuck, National Party?
And how much did you spend on this? I heard rumours of €10,000. Whatever it was, it weren’t cheap. At the very least, how many potential NP members do you project reaching with this advertising campaign? Did you at least put thought into that?
On paper, I like the NP. Their 9 principals and “National Idea” is powerful and well-written… that’s about the extent of it though. They have the rhetoric hidden away on their website – which, btw, sometimes comes off as a parody – what they don’t have is any kind of description of the party itself. By that I mean the structure and game plan. I don’t even know if they’re a registered political party or just a bunch of fellas with an undefined hierarchy. If you give these people any money you’re a fucking idiot – no offense to my friends, who are very intelligent idiots.
An insider – who quite possibly is lying – tells me there are no shortage of idiots, paying at the very least €20 a year with many donating more at the door after events, and some few good souls dishing out a few grand. I’m also told that one member left disgruntled after handing an incredible sum of money and ultimately being dissatisfied with how it was handled. True or not, just contemplating that thought had my heart sinking to my bowels. This person gave a generous amount in good faith, believing he was helping his country, and got shafted for it. There are only a few of these people in the country and this is a lot of money to grease the wheels of waking up our countrymen. As if we weren’t tight arsed enough with our money, we have to become even more guarded with it?
Let’s play a game. We’ll call it “Save the NP”, but so we don’t limit our imaginations to the unchangeable nature of the party we’ll imagine a dedicated core of members successfully staged a coup and made Barrett their bitch.
Raise the membership fee for non-administration members by at least 10 times the current figure. Re-prioritize from enlisting the masses, weed out the unwilling, and focus on people who want to be there. Membership of a political party shouldn’t be cheaper than Netflix. I know for myself, €25 a year is basically free, and I don’t respect anything I get for free. Get me paying €300 or €75 each quarter and I’m actively engaged. I want to make sure of the party’s success.
Also, it’s kind of like buying a Carbon Offset Credit. If you’re not particularly motivated to be an activist or get into politics, you can just offset your guilt with a monthly Direct Debit order of €25 a month.
With this new capital at their disposal, the newly-formed steering committee can put Justin Barrett on the payroll so he can work fulltime doing outreach and public appearances. His new job will be creating a network, forging alliances, and securing more funding.
They then hire a secretary to oversee the daily bureaucratic function of the party and make sure it’s all up to standard… the standard the new steering committee will have to invent, since the NP doesn’t have one. Right now they’re a part time party trying to be an exact emulation of UKIP.
They then hire a Marketing Consultant, an accountant, a solicitor, a Social Media manager, and a webdesigner – at least part time at first, with the end goal of having these people on fulltime, and ultimately heading their own departments. The purpose of this is building a tradition of professionalism and accountability in the party. Things keep moving, money doesn’t get mishandled, and avenues for new concepts are opened up.
The steering committee will survey the party’s members and sympathetic individuals outside the party in order to find people actually capable of thinking. Put them on a committee to discuss political theory and history, cultural theory and history, law, and religion/spirituality. The aim of this committee is to make sure the party avoids running the old scripts it’s currently running. Bring it out of the 20th Century and into the 21st, so it’s actually on the leading edge of history, offering novel solutions to old and new problems. Sorry all of that sounded like corporate jargon, but these really are ideas that need to be tabled by reasonable and intelligent people, refined, and then put into motion by a dedicated rank and file with loads of money. Right now, the NP has a hard time thinking outside the box – which is their primary and most frustrating feature. Like the other movements that came and went, they appear to be steered by ideas cooked up in an Internet echo chamber.
Will this slow the growth of the party? I don’t know. It seems to be doing a good enough job of that by itself. Slow and steady wins the race war. Instead of going with the hype and what feels good for the temporary injection of members and donations, slowly build a lasting structure that appeals to more hidden and influential sectors of Ireland, and then close in for the kill. Getting millions of ordinary Irish people to do something politically or socially is like herding cats – as soon as you have 10 of them, 50 have wandered away. It’s a complete waste of time, so you’re best off waiting until you can afford a metric tonne of tuna. Take this Black Pill and swallow it like a man: we’re fucked if our survival depends on getting a million people to join a party. Time to change tact.