John McCain diagnosed with brain cancer

Only because he literally has not even been buried yet.

I mean, seriously, do you honestly not get this? Can’t you just chill the fuck out for a few god damn days?

This is all about where we personally draw certain lines. For example, although I think harsh criticism of McCain is not appropriate right after his death, I do not limit myself at all in regard to the very small number of people I consider deserving of my personal grievous hatred and venom, such as Trump, McConnell, Limbaugh, Cheney and Rove. That’s my personal grave-shitting list.

Despite the fact that I view the modern GOP/Trump/Limbaugh faction with great animosity, I don’t consider McCain to be far enough over that line to shit on his grave.

And just because I draw the line of my deep hatred around a relatively small group of evil scumbags, that doesn’t mean that I like, endorse or support people on the better side of the line. There are always more lines, one between the “evil masterminds” and the “elite-servicing national GOP” and another between the national GOP and their synergistic/co-dependent enablers/dupes in the GOP base (what i call the “true believers” and my friend calls “the asshats”), and then yet another line between the GOP base and the never-Trump GOP/libertarians/conservatives, and then yet another line between the never-Trumpers and “moderates” AKA mainstream Democrats/Clinton Democrats and yet another line between the Clinton types and “true liberals” (which is where I put myself).

Since I am as egocentric as most folks, I put the boundaries of true political virtue in my own category of “true liberal” and then I draw yet another line to the left separating the “more left than liberal” Sanders/Ocasio-Cortes etc. group, who I consider to be moving in the right direction but not quite the way I prefer, and then yet another line to the left of that separating the radical Bernie-bros, anarcho-anti-capitalists, and the Holy God Emperor, (whom I consider more amusing/annoying than bad), and then eventually you reach a line even further to the left which again, just like the line separating the far right GOP base, delineates the borders of what I consider “evil” for want of a better word, that line being the Stalinist etc. type fascist/totalitarian left, of which America is currently free of, as far as I know. Maybe in a closet under the main library at UC Berkeley there’s a zombie Stalinist covered in cobwebs.

Compared to that the GOP base is 30% of the electorate.

And I don’t consider McCain to be in the category of the GOP base. I know he voted with them, enabled the hard right GOP, supported suppressing the Garland nomination (which I consider horrendous), and yet in my personal opinion, he did enough, over the years, to warrant being considered in the “never Trump” GOP category which I consider to be in the ballpark of D&D style “true neutral”. That’s my personal opinion.

In the big picture I guess I feel like we should save the big outrage guns for the high value targets like Trump etc. and not engage in collective punishment of everyone to the right of center. On the other hand, I do view that 30% of the electorate who supports Trump no matter what to be irredeemable.

Man, I am mixing all kinds of metaphors and frames of reference. It’s a meme-salad! Anyhow, we all draw the lines in different places, and I for one will be ready and willing to mock, shit-upon, and generally rhetorically savage Trump and his equivalents when they die. Fuck those guys. But not, IMO, McCain. YMMV.

Thank you for articulating my feelings better than I was able to while typing on the phone.

Like I said, I do not feel it appropriate to beatify someone upon their death. It does a disservice to the individual, and the public. Be honest, but for a McCain I feel do so without vitriol.

Obstructionism was the primary Republican leadership principal during the Obama administration… I’m looking around right now and it seems to be working out for them pretty well. Hopefully not long term, but boy have they done some damage to this country.

I wouldn’t support any politician on the left that proposed the sort of bi-partisanship Obama promoted during his 2008 campaign. It’s been ten years; the Republican Party is simply not capable of anything but obstructionism, and there’s no path available for anyone on the left to engage with them via any other relationship. Pretending there is one is delusional.

They’ve won control of government, but still have largely failed to achieve what they wanted. It’s unclear what they even do want.

The party is essentially destroyed. They are the dog that caught the car at this point.

It seems to me their sole goal is to demonize the left, and they are achieving that. They’ve turned other Americans into the literal enemies of their core.

Yeah, but what if they had won with a competent President instead of what the cat shat out? Scary to think about, for those of us that think the GOP has become somehow more evil over the past few decades or so.

But i think therein lies the problem.

The way the Republicans played their cards, sacrificing everything to mindless partisanship, is a major reason why someone like Trump was able to seize control of the party.

They cultivated a monster, and then lost control of it.

Tax cuts for the wealthy? Control of the courts? Looks like a sweeping victory from here.

I think the worst part is that we still have no idea if they’ll be able to keep control of the House and Senate in November or not, despite the insanity of the past almost two years. If they do, despite all reasonable logic, then I don’t see what’s stopping them from really truly arranging things so they keep power indefinitely.

Don’t forget massive corporate and environmental deregulation!

When i look at the GOP, i do not see a healthy, functional party.

So? They’re getting what they want.

The R after McCain name is no higher than the 3rd or 4th most important thing about the man, behind patriot, senator, and somewhere on par with an enemy of tyrants, mentor, statesmen, war hero, family man, hot-tempered and above funny guy, bad singer and compassionate.

I’d say the same thing is true of President Obama, Carter, or Clinton, the D is only 3rd or 4th most important. In the case of Clinton, womanizer is likewise probably the 3rd or 4th most important thing about the man behind President, and skilled politician, but I won’t say anything about it during his funeral.

As a nation we are in deep trouble when the measure of a person is almost entirely the label (D), and ®, progressive or RINO. There were classless Republican who brought up Chappaquiddick upon Ted Kennedy’s death, including on this forum, only to be slapped down by Tom. Don’t be those guys.

Much of the reason that McCain invited Bush 43, and Obama to speak at his funeral is help remind the nation that civility in politics is possible. One would think, it should not be so hard on QT3.

I think for some it’s a McCain issue and for others it’s more about freedom of speech.

But for all of us, it should be about not acting like thoughtless, inconsiderate douche-sacks. We can aspire to such heights!

They want to abolish democracy and establish an authoritarian oligarchy of the sort that’s currently running Russia. None of these people cares about governance. Being a politician is just a way to gain more influence and wealth. Trying to do away with the system that might strip that from you every four years is only natural.

There isn’t anything they won’t try in order to maintain power.

The third, and in our view, most likely, post-Trump future is one marked by polarization, more departures from unwritten political conventions, and increasing institutional warfare — in other words, democracy without solid guardrails.

To see what politics without guardrails might look like in the United States, consider North Carolina today.

After Republican Pat McCrory’s 2012 gubernatorial victory gave Republicans control of all three branches of government, the state GOP tried to lock in its dominance for the long haul. Armed with the governorship, both legislative chambers, and a majority on the state Supreme Court, Republican leaders launched an ambitious string of reforms designed to skew the political game.

They began by demanding access to background data on voters across the state. With this information in hand, the legislature passed a series of electoral reforms making it harder for voters to cast their ballots. They passed a strict voter ID law, reduced opportunities for early voting, ended pre-registration for sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds, eliminated same-day registration, and slashed the number of polling places in several key counties.

New data allowed the Republicans to design the reforms to target African American voters, as a federal appeals court put it, with “almost surgical precision.” And when an appeals court suspended the execution of the new laws, Republicans used their control of the state’s election boards to implement several of them anyway.

Thats a way to win. To have no real ideals, and only one objective: to win.

This is certainly what Trump and his ilk want, but i don’t think this is what the GOP actually wanted prior to his taking over their party.

GOP authoritarianism didn’t start with Trump. Nixon employed executive branch agencies to attack and undermine his political enemies. Reagan schemed to secretly circumvent the law in order to carry out his preferred foreign policy. Bush the Younger asserted the authority to define the entire world as a battlefield, designate anyone — even citizens — as combatants, seize them without recourse to courts, and even torture them.

Conservatism and authoritarianism go hand in hand, and the list of GOP enablers who paved the way for Trump is basically a roster of every prominent national GOP politician of the last 50 years. The GOP wants, and has wanted, permanent GOP rule for the benefit of the select. Of course every political party wants power, the difference is in what the GOP is willing to do to get it, and keep it.