Irish Examiner view: The wake-up call that America can’t ignore

Will voters see compromise as a step towards consensus, as a foil to unsustainable extremism and division? Or might they cling ever more fervently to partisan positions? 

Supporters of US president Donald Trump outside the Senate chamber in the Capitol on Wednesday. Picture: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

Astonishment, anger, distress, sorrow, fear, doubt, some degree of shame, and more than a little bewilderment shape reactions to Wednesday’s appalling events in Washington.

Those genuine, heartfelt responses, and many, many more, are justified as America’s, Europe’s, and the rest of the West’s opponents burble in a very different set of emotions. They may not gloat openly — just yet — but they are surely purring as they consider a version of that old Irish maxim: “England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity.”