Summer’s gone, so let’s have an autumn of Joy
It’s that time of year when you watch proudly as your child sticks their bag on their back and heads out to school. Hasn’t the summer flown? It seems like only yesterday they came home exhausted from their last day of (prison) term. But now they’re off again to stand outside school in the cause of righteousness. That’s one of the new signs that we’re into autumn: Enoch Burke is back in our lives.
Another sign is that Leaving Cert students got their inflated grades.
All children are now officially 7.5pc smarter than kids used to be five years ago. And by the looks of it, they’ll stay smarter for as long as Norma Foley is Education Minister — then their smartness will taper off gradually.
The vague excuse is that this Leaving Cert cohort were still affected by the pandemic. On that basis, we’ll all be here in 14 years talking about how the class of 2038 need their grades inflated because they were born into the pandemic and missed out on some early socialisation. But certainly, for now, 7.5pc smarter — so 7.5pc more Joy around the country for Leaving Cert students last Friday.
Maybe that’s what the Government is up to. Maybe they’re taking a leaf out of the US Democrats’ book and are going to stand in the next election on a policy of Joy.
But in the meantime, because they won’t give us an election to start looking forward to, we are piggybacking on the Joy of the American elections.
As we watched the outburst of Joy at the Democratic National Conference, we couldn’t help a slightly uneasy feeling. Joy certainly abounded in the hall itself — though maybe it was more relief that they didn’t have to keep tiptoeing around Joe Biden, pretending that he was fine.
But you had to wonder if the contagious power of hope really was, as Michelle Obama suggested, spreading across the country. If you live in a rust-belt town in a community hollowed out by Oxy, are you really going to get excited by a bunch of smug, rich liberal-elite types reaffirming each other? Is there a danger the Obamas — and the Clintons, and Oprah — might seem slightly condescending?
All a bit “Hollywood”?
Though Trump, in fairness, helped things along with his tired, deranged reactions. Fox News actually cut him off on Thursday night, like he was some crazy caller to Liveline.
Weirdly, we’ve now gone from a situation where everyone thought Trump might win it, purely by not being Biden, to a situation where people now think Kamala might win just by not being Biden and not being Trump.
The bar is not high these days to be the leader of the free world.
Anyway, there are lessons here.
For the craic, one of the parties here should run in the next election campaign as The Joy Party. You could argue Fianna Fáil is halfway there by bringing Gráinne Seoige (our Oprah) into the tent. But Fine Gael — having a leader called Harris who was rushed in by consensus and brought a new energy — is maybe better positioned.
Either way, let’s choose Joy this autumn.