Peace Walls and Government Shutdowns

This documentary about the peace walls in Northern Ireland made me think of Ted Cruz and his banana republicans. It shows the lives of ordinary Belfast people living cheek-by-jowl with one another but divided by a high wall, the so-called 'peace walls' that were erected during the Troubles to limit sectarian violence. I had thought most of these walls had come down after the peace process but it seems many still stand to preserve an unsteady peace between divided communities.

It was sad to see people who should have common cultural and economic interests still divided by out-of-date sectarian ideas that have no place in a modern society, imagined political loyalties and old slights that should be long forgotten.

Whenever I see Tea Party Republicans arguing their case in the media, they always remind me of the hardened hatred I grew up seeing from sectarian people. There is something about the dead-eyed stare of intransigence and the malicious grins of these hardliners that are reminiscent of some of Northern Ireland's most objectionable politicians. 

This article in the NY Times notes that many moderate Republicans are getting frustrated with the hardliners and putting them under pressure to clarify their strategy in shutting down government. Understandably, they want to move the debate on from pure intransigence and obstructionism and start focusing on how to win elections.

To quote Jeb Bush (a sentence I never thought I'd write...):

“The fight here is important to have — this is an important part of political life,” said former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida at a recent news conference in the capital. “But I do think the emphasis of being against the president’s policies, no matter how principled they are, needs to be only half the story, if not less."

This is all recognizable territory to me. Intransigence for the sake of it and obstructionism against all compromise in order not to lose face has been the bedrock of Northern Irish politics for decades. That old Ian Paisley slogan of 'Ulster Says No!' always comes to mind when I see hardline Republicans. The answer is always 'No', regardless of what the question was.

One familiar thing I didn't expect to see in the Republican/Democrat fight, however, is gerrymandering. This manipulation of voting districts has a long history in the US but it was also used by the Unionist faction in Northern Ireland to maintain a majority in NI, ensuring that an intransigent group of Unionists always had a voice in Westminster.

On the other side, Sinn Fein represented polarized Nationalist districts by not attending Westminster at all - which didn't really help matters as it left their constituents unrepresented and therefore unprotected from sectarian prejudice. The result of this gerrymandering was polarization of both parties, entrenching hardliners and alienating moderates.

A similar result of gerrymandering seems to be happening in the Republican party today. While the party may have thought it was being clever to gerrymander districts and thus win the House, in fact all they have done is create entrenched extremists who have been voted into safe districts where the Republican majority will never be threatened. This gives these politicians no incentive to negotiate.

It is this rump of 'safe-seat' House Republicans who are now providing the main resistance to the compromise that is necessary to get the government out of shutdown. They oppose Obama for the sake of it: 'Republicans Say No!' regardless of what the question was.

As it happens, many prominent US politicians from the red states have Scots-Irish ancestry. Both Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson had Scots-Irish ancestry. Ted Cruz's mother is Irish, along with his remaining Cuban-Canadian mix. Mitch McConnell looks like he could be a cousin of Ian Paisley. straight out of an Orange Order march in Belfast. John Boehner actually is orange but I'm not sure what that says about his ethnic origins.

Maybe Northern Ireland needs to take responsibility for having injected this intransigent DNA into the US political system. Here's a suggestion: Ulster can send over its own George Mitchell figure to heal the Republican-Democrat divide and get the government open and working again. It would probably be easier than letting the US descend into intra-necine violence and learning the hard way that mindless intransigence only leads to more suffering in the long run.