Irish Examiner view: US politics is at a crossroads and must follow the right path

Biden's efforts to end polarisation will fail if Republicans do not reject extremists

US President Joe Biden. Picture: AP Photo/Evan Vucci

When — as it will — the pandemic passes, analysts will suggest how we might have done things differently. Hindsight will have one of its regular, necessary moments. Some strident, high-flying voices, unburdened by expertise, already have. 

Post-pandemic reviews will highlight turning points, will list seminal moments in our recovery. The discovery of vaccines will be included in those lists.

Histories of the Second World War long ago parsed moments that led to the defeat of fascism. 

One, possibly apocryphal, was set in the Moscow train station, Kirovskaya, where, in 1941, after pacing a platform beside the train prepared to evacuate him, Stalin apparently changed his mind and decided: “Moscow will be defended to the last!” 

That, whether true or not, marked the end of the retreat of Russian armies. The decision sparked a recovery we can, despite misgivings, all celebrate.

Stalin’s test seems an apt metaphor for the dilemma facing the US’s Grand Old Republican Party, which is, to extend the metaphor, pacing a railway platform trying to decide whether it might do the right thing or swap its old decency and principles for power. 

Early signals suggest the pursuit of power has prevailed. Any linkage to the decent conservatism of Lincoln and Eisenhower has disappeared, just like many of Stalin’s opponents. 

Trump’s impeachment hearing is central, but the dilemma — only a dilemma if conscience is suspended — facing Republicans comes together around two women, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Liz Cheney.

Greene is a far-right conspiracy theorist elected to Congress in November. Her election was described as QAnon’s first national political victory. QAnon has been called a potential terrorist threat by the FBI. 

Even from the perspective of a country that not so very long ago discussed the possibility that concrete statues might move, Greene seems dangerously unhinged. House Republicans, under Kevin McCarthy, condemned Greene’s remarks on school shootings. 

Nevertheless, McCarthy criticised a Democrat move to bar her from her committee assignments. The same Republicans voted on Wednesday not to demote Cheney, despite hard-right efforts to do so. 

Cheney incurred their wrath because she supported efforts to constrain Trump’s excesses. Indeed, she described that wrath as a badge of honour. 

Tragically, McCarthy’s ridicule of Democrats’ efforts to sideline Greene signalled a dismissal of bipartisan demands that she be punished for her racist, violent views and bizarre conspiracy theories.

It may be difficult this Friday morning, in this green and pleasant land, to be stirred by the machinations of the US’s increasingly unattractive, unhinged Republican Party, but that may be unwise. 

Unless that party can return to a semblance of decency and find the moral courage to reject dangerous extremists such as Greene, then President Joe Biden’s efforts to end the polarisation destroying the US will fail. 

A house divided cannot stand and because of the many, many challenges we face, our world can hardly afford a divided, dysfunctional US. Republicans need to recogise the full scale and impact of their decisions.