I accept it as politics as usual, and again you make the case so well I feel a little embarrassed. Though I will stand by that I like McCain that spoke true even if it hurt him, more than the rubber stamped political one. I dislike the politics described here, but it is…ug…normal.
If we all come together as one, we can wave our hands hard enough to brush away 40 years of complicity in the name of Coming Together and Maverickitude.
You’ll all be shocked to learn that I’m not buying it for a second. Post CRA Republicans should all be embarrassed for themselves.
Again, I gotta ask the question… if McCain was so complicit, why did the far right hate him so much?
Part of McCain big appeal to the media, was that he felt bad about doing normal political things, and would often telegraph it. Most famously in his support for the confederate flag, in South Carolina, where everybody in the press knew he was lying when he said, “it is a state issue”, and ducked question on how he personally felt about it. The fact that he came back and apologized is really newsworthy, but it makes it easy for partisan folks to say “see he is a hypocrite”.
The big issue much of the Republican base had with McCain and many other Republican politician is they were too principal and didn’t pull out all the stops. Plenty of Democrats feel the same weigh about their politicians also. Some pragmatism has to go hand in hand with principals or you simply don’t get elected.
Lately, I’m getting really tired of folks (not just politicians but entrepreneurs, scientisst) responding to every question, “with that’s a really good question.” It is lie, they are aren’t all good question, some are just stupid because the person asking the question wasn’t listening, but you’ll only piss people off by telling them the truth.
Because the far right is full of hateful Morons who love to hate?
Racists hate terrorists, but it doesn’t stop them from being racists.
Because he occasionally showed sparks of… reason? They don’t like that. But occasional moments of lucidity do not mean sanity. They only highlight the insanity.
Me, too, but if McCain was politics as usual, what’s with all this nonsense about his unique integrity?
LOL see Strollen’s response above for that. :) He did it, but when he did it, he often just sucked at it.
As I said before, if McCain made an actual impact, you could point to the things he did that made that impact, and you wouldn’t have it infer it by pointing at who hated him and guessing why. So, point to the actual things he did as a politician that were different, unique, and made a difference. I can’t see them.
Well, in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.
One day we will stop electing such fuckwits.
I bet we won’t.
The left is gonna elect someone just as crazy, and folks on the left will defend the craziness out of partisanship. And Trump will have nomalized this kind of total insanity.
Prove me wrong, kids!
And if wishes were horses, John Kasich would be a moderate.
Meanwhile, Democrats in the Senate are cutting deals to fast-track Trump’s judges, but you know…both sides are the same!
No no no no… I’m not saying that both sides are the same. The GOP is worse. They need to be destroyed.
But I fear that Trump has opened up something, and we’ll see someone rise up on the left who is just as damaging… Perhaps worse, given they couldn’t possibly be as incompetent.
No. The left has to play the game as they always have. If they take a play from the right’s book they become the monster they are fighting. There is much sanity on the left. Sometimes to their detriment. They don’t crazy because they ain’t crazy. And by ‘as they always have’, I mean stay sane. Not be wusses. Because that’s a page out of their own playbook. One they should shred and burn.
Albright, Madeleine. Fascism: A Warning (pp. 230-232). Harper. Kindle Edition.
GIVEN THAT FASCISM TENDS TO TAKE HOLD IN A STEP-BY-STEP manner rather than by making one giant leap, could it ever proceed very far in America before being stopped? Is the United States immune to this malady—or susceptible?
Before addressing those questions, I ask you to envision Uncle Sam in his long white nightshirt, tossing and turning, his sleep disturbed by three very bad dreams.
In the first, reactionary billionaires conspire to monopolize media platforms and pour their riches into the campaigns of favored candidates who, when in office, ensure the selection of compliant judges. Laws are enacted to ban Muslim immigrants, criminalize abortions, unfairly restrict voting, divert funding for public education to private schools, and drill for oil here, there, and everywhere. The president is given full authority to issue or revoke broadcasting licenses, expand Guantánamo to include domestic criminal suspects, and bar investigations of himself. From cradle to grave, an increasing number of citizens spend their lives within a conservative echo chamber, where they watch nothing but Fox News, memorize the Breitbart catechism, and learn only what goose-stepping right-wingers want them to know. Finally, as climate change advances and epic floods inundate our cities, heavily armed civilian militias are organized to protect private property, made bold by the promise of presidential pardons should anyone pull a trigger in “self-defense.”
Nightmare number two: Wealthy liberals from Hollywood and New York invest their money in favored candidates who, when elected, conspire to enforce rigid standards of political correctness across all the major institutions of society—government, police, media, sports, theater, universities, and kindergarten classrooms. Anyone who violates these vague and unwritten norms, or is accused of having done so, is labeled a bigot and fired. Right-wing speakers are barred from public gatherings because their exercise of free speech might injure the sensitivities of club-wielding anti-Fascists. Gender-specific bathrooms are banned as discriminatory, and terrorists pour across our borders because to stop them would require racial profiling. The Second Amendment is repealed, fossil fuels are prohibited, and an increasing number of citizens spend their entire lives within a Socialist echo chamber, learning only what Fascist liberals want them to know.
Nightmare number three: The United States is hit by multiple terror attacks, killing thousands, with responsibility claimed by U.S.-based Muslim radicals. A shaken president begs Americans to trust their government and not take the law into their own hands. Although acknowledging the need for toughness, the White House refuses to round up Muslims or shut mosques down. In the wake of yet another terrorist assault, and another, and another, a mesmerizing young orator appears on television—and Twitter—to accuse leaders from both major parties of cowardice. He calls for a revolution that will free the country from the lies that have been sapping its will and shackling its might. He vows to smash and destroy the terrorists just as they have done to the innocent men, women, and children slain in their loathsome strikes. He pledges a baptism by fire that will bring about a great awakening, the rebirth of America as it used to be—independent, proud, brave, pure, and worthy of God’s blessing. He beseeches listeners to prepare their minds and bodies for the struggles to come—not only against the terrorists but also against their apologists and enablers. He warns them that their enemies are already preparing to attack, so their only chance is to strike first. “We must not hesitate,” he shouts. “They will say we are barbarians, and they are right. We want to be barbarians. It is an honorable title. Let us harden our hearts and take America back!”
Long ago, I gave you the chance to not be the only person on my ignore list.
This was your response.
‘K, g’bye @Strollen !
You are smart guy you certainly don’t need my help to answer your question.
If you google “John McCain’s legacy” you get 31+ million hits.
READ
If you are too lazy to read, there are documentaries on HBO, Frontline, CNN, and 60 Minutes on McCain.
The past week there have been countless hours of focus on TV explaining what made John McCain special.
If you actually care, and I sincerely doubt you do, there are 6 hours of coverage tomorrow on CNN. I have no idea what President Obama is going to say, but I bet it will answer your question if you even pretend to have an open mind.
But what both know there isn’t a damn thing I could say to change your mind, that hasn’t been explained by others. So why in the hell did you ask me and why in the fuck should I waste my time answering?
@tomchick while I do appreciate the fun things you do for Patron sponsors, what I really want is a real ignore function.
Well, yeah, pretty much. As I said, decent people don’t support the Republican Party. McCain supported, participated in, and furthered the cause of the GOP long after it became obvious what an anathema it had become to this country’s values. As a maverick, which seems to be your implication, he was a pretty half-assed one.
That I think “loyal Republican” and “decent person” are mutually exclusive? Look, I will gladly recant when you show me a loyal Republican who isn’t a bigot, a scumbag, or a proudly low information rube.
There have been whole threads of people who want this. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to write software. And the guy who does is notoriously absent any good will for me or this forum.
-Tom
I agree with Tom that McCain lost his decency. GOP membership wasn’t always an inherent display of indecency as it is now. But by insensible degrees, McCain went from being a principled “maverick” to a line-toeing party man, until by the early 2000s he had bought into the neocon apparatus lock, stock and barrel. His low-point was Palin, who was so obviously stupid and unprincipled that she could only have been signed up to attract that decade’s “deplorables”. But if you look into the abyss…
At his worst, McCain was obviously superior to any of the current crop of Trumpian monsters in both the house and the senate not to even mention the administration, but his diminishment as a politician is nevertheless regrettable given his starting point.