THE DEATH OF DECENCY

TRUMP VISITS GOLF COURSE WHILE WASHINGTON MOURNS MCCAIN

The headline above from the September 1st edition of The New York Times perfectly illustrates the utterly classless and indifferent way that President Trump responded to the death of Republican Senator and war veteran John McCain.  Not only did he spend time playing golf (something that he once criticized President Obama for doing) during the funeral, he also found time to tweet out his usual dose of lies, boasts and insults while the proceedings were taking place.   Because even the death of one of the most admired politicians in the country can't stop Trump from thinking about himself.  It is fitting that McCain pointedly forbade Trump from attending his funeral services, seeing as how he once turned a speech at his own father's funeral into yet another excuse to brag about himself!

The death of McCain at age 81 from brain cancer is more than a tragedy, it's a sad symbol of what has really died in Washington since Trump took that fateful escalator ride more than two years ago: simple human decency.  McCain had a hot temper, was mostly a down the line conservative, and he was a constant defender of the disastrous 2003 invasion of Iraq.  But he was also  a decent man who was willing to cross the political aisle to cut deals and build friendships.  He was outspoken in his (sadly doomed) attempt to cut down the influence of big money in politics.  And along with his war record, I will always admire him for three things: when, during the 2008 presidential campaign, he corrected a woman in the crowd who called Obama a Muslim, when he withdrew his (already reluctant) endorsement of then candidate Trump after the release of the infamous Access Hollywood tape, and, of course, when he voted against the Senate's attempts to repeal Obamacare, which would have resulted in tens of millions of people losing their health care.

At the same time, McCain provided a bridge to the disastrous state that the country is in right now: in the 2008 campaign, when McCain's initial choice of vice presidential candidate, Independent Senator Joe Lieberman, was killed by the party because Lieberman was pro choice, McCain picked the mostly unknown governor of Alaska Sarah Palin as his running mate.  While she proved to be a terrible choice for the campaign, her plain spoken manner made her very popular in the party.  And as the campaign went on, her misstatements and lack of knowledge, combined with her willingness to embrace the more radical elements of the party (she once accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists") endeared her even more to the Republican base. 

 

Is it any surprise that eight years later the party was ready to embrace an unexperienced, insulting, blunt talker as its standard bearer?  And, in typical take no prisoners fashion, is it any surprise that Palin herself endorsed Trump, even after he had personally attacked McCain's war record? By 2016, McCain himself, was already a dinosaur, a remembrance of time when hyper partisanship wasn't the only thing driving the Republican party, as the often openly bigoted Trump wing of the party swept up behind the openly bigoted candidate. 

The good news is that, while Trump remains popular with the Republican base, the number of people in that base is shrinking: recently, Ohio Republican Governor  John Kasich admitted in an interview that  "We’re now down to about 25 percent. It’s all becoming like a remnant."  If any good can come from the Trump presidency, it may be that his open bigotry and conspiracy mongering may well  whittle down the Republican party to only a few remaining lunatics in the future.  But, for now, those lunatics are running the Washington asylum.  And they can do a lot of damage.