White House race - A divided America is weakened

Even though the American Civil War ended nearly six decades before our own, that country, still the world’s biggest economy, still the great superpower, seems polarised in a way unimaginable in contemporary Ireland or Europe.

It seems that those on either side of America’s culture wars do not care to understand each other, much less work with each other, to rebuild an economy as comatose as any in the western world. How else could anything as vile, as shamelessly dishonest, as comedic, as Fox News maintain such a strong foothold in the public space?

The great divide between Republicans and Democrats is fuelled by a corrosive, mutual loathing that diminishes the idea of America and its ability to advance the liberal, egalitarian and meritocratic values that, for centuries and for impoverished millions, made it their last, the very last, great hope.

Last weekend Ireland was lucky enough to glimpse just a fragment of the great living legacy of that redemptive opportunity when nearly 40,000 Americans, most of them more than happy to claim an Irish heritage, visited Dublin for the Emerald Isle Classic football game between Navy and Notre Dame.

Some of those who enjoyed Dublin last weekend may be in Charlotte, North Carolina, tomorrow night to see the Democratic party nominate President Barack Obama and vice-president Joe Biden to run for a second White House term.

Others, before they came to Dublin, may have been in Florida to see Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan endorsed by the Republicans to challenge the Obama/Biden ticket but, if traditional alliances still stand for anything, far fewer than are in North Carolina this week.

The Democratic party, even if it was reached through New York’s infamously corrupt Tammany Hall, has almost exclusively shaped the political life of Irish America.

It is not overstating the case to say that without that linkage, without the kind of empathy needed to see the possibility of hope, even in conflict, this island would not be at peace with itself or its past. That assertion stands despite unwelcome sectarian violence in Belfast in recent days.

Without concentrated American influence — sometimes bordering on indulgence — and investment the conflict rooted in our own Civil War would probably still be dragging on, ruining lives and opportunities.

Ireland’s history would suggest our politics, and especially the politics of continental Europe, would be far more extreme than America’s but that is, thankfully, not the case. Though that terrible conflict a little more than a lifetime ago cost millions of lives, Europe is united today to save the euro, unity, and ultimately the comfort only multinational solidarity can offer.

It must concern anyone who believes that America is a force for good in the world that the deepening cultural conflict will have such an influence in the closing months of the presidential election campaign.

Only those opposed to the democratic and empowering ideals championed by America can celebrate that division.