Unionism is in a pretty dire place.

Events of the last few weeks have highlighted that – and by unionism, I mean the DUP, which seems to be struggling to adapt and find its place in a modern world.

The Confidence and Supply Deal with the Tory party appeared to be a turning point for Unionism.

This new-found power at Westminster should have strengthened, reinvigorated and reassured the Unionist electorate that their place within the Union was safe and secure.

Instead,  it seems to have underscored the weakness and division within the DUP and also shone a very bright spotlight on the outdated and socially conservative views of many at the party’s top table.

We can do an autopsy over the deal that wasn’t a deal from now until same-sex marriage is legal, but it won’t change the facts as they were laid out for all to see in a document that was clearly in the advanced stages.

Edwin Poots, one of the negotiating team who helped get the draft to the stage it was at, had previously said that any deal would involve pain for his community, and it’s clear that even the watered-down version of the Irish Language Act being offered would have caused some problems.

That’s not to say it would have been impossible to deliver.

The deal as it had been drafted was a good one for Unionism in general.

The DUP conceded very little, Sinn Féin was clearly, despite speculation otherwise, up for a deal.

They seemed willing to agree on what would have been seen by many Nationalists as a weak deal in order to get the institutions back up and running.

The separate talks with the British government on the legacy and the use of allies in the Labour party to push same-sex marriage through Westminster would, I assume, have softened the blow for the party’s members and voters.

The DUP, on the other hand, should have been crowing from the rooftops about the great deal they’d secured. Instead, the party leadership seems either unwilling or unable to deliver even the slightest compromise.

Unionism over the 20 years of the peace process has sold every compromise as a defeat, every move to modernize Northern Ireland as an attack on the Union, resisting at every stage. It makes no sense, and is clearly a self-defeating strategy; it seems bizarre that no one has picked up on that or tried a change of tactic.

Arlene Foster’s leadership has been badly damaged by the events of the last few weeks. Her inability to get a deal over the line has been blamed on everyone from Jamie Bryson, the Orange Order to Stephen Nolan and phone in caller George from the Shankill.

In reality, had she and her senior party members not continued to treat rights to Irish speakers as a threat to the Union she would be back in her Stormont office, greeting visiting dignitaries as the first minister by now.

This continuing doubling down with flimsy denials about what was and wasn’t agreed isn’t helping matters.

I was in the BBC studio last week for that feisty exchange between Sinn Féin’s Gerry Kelly and DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson.

And while presenter Mark Carruthers managed to get more information out of Gerry Kelly than a team of detectives in Castlereagh could, the Sinn Féin MLA just added to what his party leader Mary Lou McDonald had already said.

The DUP, however, denied all knowledge that anything had been agreed on the legacy.

The blocking of money for inquests into Troubles victims, many with families who have waited over 40 years, should shame any political party.

To use victims as a bargaining chip is an appalling tactic and nothing to take pride in.

We’re in a pretty dark place politically.

Public patience with this process is clearly running out.

The anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement should have been an opportunity to celebrate, to congratulate ourselves on a job well done in uniting a divided society.

And while we must always remain mindful that the bloodshed has stopped, we remain a divided and polarized place.

Our children remain separately educated; housing is segregated, sectarianism is rife.

There’s not a lot worth celebrating at this 20-year milestone, but how different could it have been if Unionism had the bravery to embrace the process and reassure their electorate instead of constantly peddling poor mouth politics.