Una Mullally: Politicians need to engage us with ideas as smart the one for New York parents

Something in short supply in politics these days is optimism. That’s hardly surprising. There is a lot to feel bad about. Many deeply serious issues that feature daily in Irish media – climate catastrophes, the genocide of Palestinians, the impact of American authoritarianism, the never-ending Irish housing emergency, the unnerving encroachment of AI – feel existential. There is no point in facing these realities in an inane or Pollyanna-type manner. But compounding a sense of negativity, helplessness and hopelessness stops conversations from germinating solutions.With the Dáil briefly back early, it’s a challenge to feel inspired by the state of Irish politics. This could be just vibes, but in my day-to-day conversations with people – and perhaps this is part of a broader disengagement due to overwhelm and media fragmentation – I’ve noticed Irish politics as a topic features less and less. The ever-governments of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have also given rise to an ever-opposition. Although this repetition is not totally uniform (we have after all the reactionary and populist right wing in the form of Aontú and Independent Ireland, a growing party in the Social Democrats and violent, abusive far-right agitators online and off), it does breed a sort of stasis: new term, same tune.But new seasons can also birth new approaches. As much as many people are either bored or disapproving of the current Government – in a summer poll conducted by the Sunday Independent, 61 per cent of people disapproved of how the Government was doing its job – what is not useful for the Opposition is shoulder-shrugging and ire-migrating to the parties who have framed themselves as the potential alternative left-wing government. What you don’t want is apathy, because societal apathy breeds structural repetition.So, some things the left-wing Opposition could ask itself are: what kind of new approach is engaging? What would motivate people? What would energise them? Engagement is a game of attention. You engage people by presenting a different mentality to the status quo, with interesting ideas, through good and innovative messaging.READ MOREIn a context where most people feel the Government isn’t doing its job well, the Opposition’s mentality should be solutions-focused, not coloured purely by critique. The Opposition’s messaging needs to be tonally very different from the Government’s. There are no excellent communicators in the Government, whereas there are several very decent ones in the ranks of the left-wing and centre-left Opposition parties. Government politicians’ digital communication is also poor, so that’s another opportunity to be better. Attacking with humour rather than just dourness and anger also makes people notice. But the biggest opportunity is to find tangible ways to make big-picture policy understood in the small. That is to say, to make it almost fractal: represent something big at a small scale that helps illustrate the larger goals. The Opposition’s policy goals need practical ideas that are thematically illustrative of their policy differences compared with the Government’s, and therefore demonstrate change. Positivity is not incompatible with seriousness. And that’s what the left-wing Opposition should lead with.One of the biggest positive and serious initiatives in recent years is free hormone replacement therapy. This was a good idea. Nobody could gain anything politically from opposing it. It spoke to women’s health and access to treatment, the cost of living, and the post-repeal context of women asserting themselves more in Irish society. It was tangible and obvious.[ Fintan O'Toole: Here’s a radical idea for the Government: start telling us the truthOpens in new window ]One of the current successes in political messaging, showing communication prowess with positive and serious ideas, is New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani. He is in power, of course, which is a helpful place to be, because his policies can actually be implemented. While there is plenty of praise for his charisma and brilliant communication style, what he’s also very good at is illustrating broader policy goals with specific, practical ideas that feel real to people.Take, for example, childcare. Free childcare was a central tenet of Mamdani’s campaign for mayor but it will take a while to achieve his main policy goal – expanding free day care to all children under five. In the meantime, earlier this month New York City piloted its Parents’ Night Out initiative, which offered about 265 families four hours of free babysitting on a Sunday between 4pm and 8pm. Recreation centres in the city supervised by staff from its parks department were used. Parents had four hours of free time to do whatever they wanted, knowing their children were occupied and fed. Isn’t that a good idea? Doesn’t it capture multiple things at once? The cost and availability of childcare, the need for young families to be better supported, the capacity of a city or state to care for its residents, a simple service that has a meaningful impact on people’s quality of life and a gesture of care that gives people a breather. If you can’t get your entire policy over the line, make it fractal. Don’t languish in the promise of the abstract. Demonstrate the potentiality with tangible initiatives. Making people feel good is an underrated driver of engagement. We are very caught up in how so much engagement actually makes people feel worse about the world rather than better about it. So where are the Opposition’s tangible, practical, popular, smart ideas they could present to the Government, with a groundswell of public support, to start making that declaration of change feel real? Large policy change is almost impossible to achieve when you’re not in power. But perhaps the Opposition should start sweating the small stuff and demonstrate to the public that they’re the ones with the good ideas – no matter how small.