The public, and their changing choices, are much more to blame than the politicians are.
Which makes me ask: Where’s the imagination?
It is, perhaps, the stupidest three paragraphs of text ever suggested to an Irish Government.
A church that speaks out on Christian doctrine only when that doctrine happens to coincidentally serve the political needs of the state is, in this writer’s estimation, barely worthy of the name.
O’Gorman’s opinion as to what “represents as durable” is just that: His personal opinion.
Names have meaning and significance, and should be treated with the respect they deserve.
Our political class now appears to be in such a desperate state of panic that the apparent priority here was not to think matters through, but to rush the story into print.
Unless Iowa is an unprecedented outlier and freak result, Trump’s Republican opponents are wasting their time.
The Government now has two unpalatable options, and an unworkable one.
It will, as progressives have done in almost every campaign over the last century, be an effort to guilt the public into voting against the alleged sins of their grandparents and great-grandparents.
The last time a Government lost the co-operation and consent of the Irish people to govern them, it was largely as a result of policing tactics like these, and the injudicious use of its monopoly on the use of force.
It is very likely that over the coming months, the public are going to be confronted with the spectacle of dozens, if not hundreds, of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael candidates for the county council telling voters on the doorsteps and on the local airwaves that their national party leadership is entirely wrong on immigration.