"Backwoodsmen"

Speaking in the election, Leo Varadkar said;

"Other parties talk about change, but we have been the ones who have been driving it through, and we want to finish it. 

And if we have a Fianna Fáil led government, I have no doubt that the social progress we have seen in recent years will not continue.

There are a lot of backwoodsmen in Fianna Fáil that would slow down social progress. 

The referendum would not have happened had Fianna Fáil been in office."

So this is obviously a reference to the fact that a significant number of Fianna Fáil TDs opposed repeal of the 8th amendment in the 2018 referendum.

I had to look up the meaning of the term "backwoodsman", and according to dictionary.com it means "an inhabitant of backwoods, especially one regarded as uncouth or backward."

Just as a reminder, 33% of the electorate voted to keep the 8th amendment. So Varadkar, a man looking to be re-elected as Taoiseach, has essentially called a third of Irish people uncouth and backward.

The first thing that struck me was the double standard here. This is because Varadkar is also quoted as saying that it was:

"a really unfortunate thing that in the last couple of years, particularly the past couple of months, some parties have tried to inject class politics into Irish politics.

And that:

"Fianna Fáil are trying to pit working class against middle class."

So basically culture war politics, whereby the country is divided into "backwoodsmen" and whatever the opposite it, is ok, but class politics, whereby the country is divided into working and middle class is not. What kind of logic sees one as good and the other bad.

The answer to that is to be found in Fine Gael's understanding of "social progress". And not just Fine Gael's understanding of that term, but liberal Ireland's too.

What better embodiment of this conceptualisation than Sen. Catherine Noone and her recent comments on Varadkar and the subject of autism. Noone was a key political figure in the run up to referendum, chairing the Oireachtas committee recommending its repeal. She was prominent in public debate and was highly visible in Dublin castle for the victory celebrations. Almost the perfect symbol of the 21 century Irish woman - empowered, professional, independent. Very socially progressive.

And during the election campaign she described Varadkar as being "on the spectrum" and "autistic" because of his supposedly socially awkward manner. Noone probably meant it as a compliment to her party boss, trying to generate empathy for him. The only problem is that these remarks were deeply ignorant, mean and offensive to people with autism.

On its own, we might not read much more into this episode. But in the context of Fine Gael's abysmal performance on issues like healthcare, housing and crime, all issues which betray a boderline sociopathic lack of empathy with and compassion for ordinary Irish people, it reveals more. It reveals a highly ideological view of social progress, one centred on the maximisation of economic and social liberty  for a very exclusive class of society, one that is mainly urban, professional and well-off, at the expense of virtually everyone else.

The views of Noone, so passionately pro-"freedom" and empowerment of the marginalised in one sense and yet so crassly ignorant of other marginalised people in another, are perfectly coherent and in character for a party, which let's face it, has a very warped sense of morality.