This is what true decadence looks like. This is a political order on the very cusp of collapse, a cusp to which the ornaments of that order are entirely oblivious.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are now so sunk in their own entitlement that they have agreed to alternate the office of Taoiseach between them. And they have agreed to do so pursuant to the result of a General Election that they both lost.
Their problem with Sinn Féin is not its left-wing economic radicalism. Sinn Féin has been in government in the other part of Ireland for a very long time, and there is absolutely no sign of any left-wing economic radicalism there.
Nor do they want to keep out Sinn Féin because it has a history of political violence. Neither Fianna Fáil nor Fine Gael can say anything about that, any more than can the DUP, whose Ulster Resistance has never so much as declared a ceasefire.
No, Fianna Fáil's and Fine Gael's problem with Sinn Féin is that it is not them. It is not in their club. The club that the Green Party has decided to join. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are so far gone that they cannot see what it means that between them they cannot now muster an overall majority in the Dáil without a third partner.
Just as Greens in Britain always have to be asked the Yes-No question, "Do you regret the defeat of the miners in 1985?", so the Irish Greens will forever hereafter have to be asked the Yes-No question of whether they stood by their decision to keep the Gombeen State going for a couple more years, if that.
Straddling the Border, seven elderly men are also on a cusp. They are on the cusp of making it as big as London's much-derided Governments in Exile of this or that Eastern European country made it 30 years ago. That may be a good thing. It may be a bad thing. But it is the only thing that matters.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are now so sunk in their own entitlement that they have agreed to alternate the office of Taoiseach between them. And they have agreed to do so pursuant to the result of a General Election that they both lost.
Their problem with Sinn Féin is not its left-wing economic radicalism. Sinn Féin has been in government in the other part of Ireland for a very long time, and there is absolutely no sign of any left-wing economic radicalism there.
Nor do they want to keep out Sinn Féin because it has a history of political violence. Neither Fianna Fáil nor Fine Gael can say anything about that, any more than can the DUP, whose Ulster Resistance has never so much as declared a ceasefire.
No, Fianna Fáil's and Fine Gael's problem with Sinn Féin is that it is not them. It is not in their club. The club that the Green Party has decided to join. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are so far gone that they cannot see what it means that between them they cannot now muster an overall majority in the Dáil without a third partner.
Just as Greens in Britain always have to be asked the Yes-No question, "Do you regret the defeat of the miners in 1985?", so the Irish Greens will forever hereafter have to be asked the Yes-No question of whether they stood by their decision to keep the Gombeen State going for a couple more years, if that.
Straddling the Border, seven elderly men are also on a cusp. They are on the cusp of making it as big as London's much-derided Governments in Exile of this or that Eastern European country made it 30 years ago. That may be a good thing. It may be a bad thing. But it is the only thing that matters.
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