Jennifer Horgan: Why the Burkes’ Washington protest was no accident – and what it says about the right

I was unsurprised when I heard the Burkes were on their way to Washington. The rumour that Trump’s “special government employee” had invited them over seemed plausible.

When a post on X falsely claimed that "Enoch Burke, a Christian school teacher in Ireland will be stripped of his salary after refusing to use they/them pronouns," Musk re-shared it with one word: "Wow."

Elon is estranged from his transgender daughter Vivian Jenna Wilson, whom he describes as having been infected by the ‘woke’ virus. Wilson, in turn, describes her father as “uncaring and narcissistic”. 

So, for Elon, Enoch Burke is a friend of the American right. Sure, Musk hasn’t entirely bought into personal faith yet, but details don’t matter to the right. Their eye is coldly fixated on cultural change.

Connection. Collaboration. United not divided. More alike than different. These are not simply slogans for the left.

As it turned out, the Burkes ended up protesting outside the White House, but we shouldn’t have been in the least bit surprised if they had been invited to the party.

The right is huge on community. Inviting the Burkes would have been a perfectly reasonable way to gather foot soldiers to Make America Great Again.

These guys are masters of collective action. The march on the Capitol was a hugely successful event. Take right and wrong out of it, it was hugely effective and fuelled the next election – one absolutely won by misogyny.

Men comprised 81.3% (625 of 716) of the charged rioters. Predictably in 2024, more men voted for Trump than the previous election. Trump performed better among Black men and among Latino men.

Trump shouted: "If you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore." So, people fought. Trump ignited fire in their bellies. Fellow lefties, I ask you, where is the fire in ours?

Before Trump, we endured Brexit, yet another example of superb collective action. In this instance it was more about age than gender. Seventy-eight percent of those aged 65 or over voted in the 2015 election, compared with 43% of 18–24-year-olds. Older people still retain memories of collective political action – the almost moral imperative to vote.

The left and collective action

The left, in contrast, has become increasingly bad at bringing people together. We managed it in our recent referenda, but we are now looking at a centre-right cabinet with fewer women than the one before. We are splintering into nothingness.

According to journalist and documentary maker Alan Curtis, our lack of collective energy stems from hyper-individualism. In an interview with podcaster Adam Buxton, he even relates this to the absence of heady romance in our young people. 

Is he right? Are young people too busy taking selfies to notice anyone else? Have they become so consumed by themselves that they can’t be bothered to try putting themselves in the shoes of others, something that's essential for co-operation?

Whatever about teenage behaviour, adult behaviour has also shifted. For moral guidance, we refuse to look to any collective power and instead turn our gaze towards celebrities. 

For political agency, we look there too. During the 2024 American election, intelligent people genuinely believed that George Clooney and Taylor Swift could save the world.

Michael Sheen is our latest moral guide, featured on Channel 4 on Monday trying to solve vulture capitalism all by himself. He is wonderful, but we can’t vote for him.

Spend five minutes watching Megan ‘Sussex’ on Netflix telling us all how to be a good friend, and you’ll get my point. Life through a left lens feels meaningless, flimsy, devoid of direction. Meanwhile, the right is experiencing success after success.

We sit in disbelief asking why the Burkes are travelling to America. The far more important question to answer is this – where are we going? What, if anything, are we doing?

Thankfully, it’s not all bad news. There is a growing collectivism on the left that is heartening – helped, unpredictably, by religious leaders.

Episcopal Bishop of Washington, Mariann Edgar Budde, angered Donald Trump when she called on him to see immigrants and members of the LGBTQ+ community as human beings.

In February Pope Francis, now extremely ill, openly criticised Trump’s deportation plans. Last month, he wrote a letter to bishops describing Mary, Joseph and Jesus as emigrants and refugees. As TP O'Mahony wrote in the Irish Examiner recently, it's rather shocking for the pope to become a defender of democracy, but here we are. 

The left should amplify these voices and collect beneath the wing of anyone who is championing humanity. Sadly, we’re so jaded that all moral guidance is painted as self-congratulatory, pompous, and conceited.

So, we go back to fixating on appearances. According to Adam Curtis, we even avoid mentioning death, because all we believe in is ourselves. This tracks for me.

What must the left do?

My (no doubt unwanted) advice? We must not give up on our collective faith in humanity – wherever that faith comes from.

I have no doubt that the Burkes will make American connections on their visit, even if they don’t make it past the gates. There are people with very deep pockets over there, only dying to help. We underestimate them at our peril.

On the left, we must make connections too.

Last week, I celebrated International Women’s Day at Nano Nagle Place in Cork City. I was reminded of the amazing work conducted by Irish nuns (a collective). However we might reject the Catholic Church in 2025, and rage against its abuses, it was expert at bringing people together.

It was a collective. Nano Nagle, who founded the Presentation Sisters was an impressive individual, no question, but her work involved collective action.

The centre is named after her, but she did not work alone. She was part of group of women. In 1771, she poured her inheritance into founding a convent, initially for the Ursuline sisters, in Cove Lane. 

Then, wanting to work outside the convent walls, she established another order, the Presentation Sisters, with three other women. They were a group brought together by a shared belief in the worthiness of all people, including the worthiness of exceptionally poor Cork girls.

Indeed, Dr Áine Hyland, speaking at the event, described the collective movements of women through Irish history, including her own two grandmothers.

Then she made a remarkably interesting comment. She said she hopes that women will not always be “hoping and praying outside the door”, listening in to the big decisions being made by men.

This is where I will stop criticising the failure of the left to create successful collective movements. Men like Trump and Musk and even Enoch Burke have one distinct advantage – they are politically represented. They are already in the room, even if some of them are concurrently holding placards at a gate.

The key obstacle for women and minorities on the left is that we are trying to create change from outside. We might as well be Michael Sheen, railing against the might of banks that will not even take his phone calls.

So, how can we produce an equally effective kind of collectivism, but without violence and against hate? I don’t know. But the answer isn’t Megan Sussex or Taylor Swift. It’s not the personal trainer. It’s not to be found in my anti-wrinkle – death denial cream either. Nor is it down the camera of my phone.

I know it relates to political representation, but what else? What might the new collectivism on the left look like?

In the words of Smashing Pumpkins, despite all my rage, I still feel like “a rat in a cage”. I’d like to get out. I’d like to join a movement that feels powerful without being shouty. Something like a church, but not that either. This week, I’m going to see what’s out there. I’m going to exit the cage, turn up and do my best to connect.

People power. Grassroot movement. Collective action.

You’ve been gone too long; I’m coming to get you.