Posted on 08/28/2018 6:14:19 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
If you’re confused by President Trump’s reluctance to celebrate the life of Sen. John McCain, it’s because Trump knows something you don’t: his base.
The Red Hats And Talk Radio wing of American politics has long had a problematic relationship with the Arizona senator. And by “problematic,” I mean, they hated his guts. For years, McCain was the poster child of the kind of Republicanism they loathed, the kind of Republicanism that eventually led many of these voters to turn to Trump in the first place.
And if he were still with us, McCain would say “You’re damn right.”
New Hampshire political consultant Michael Dennehy, who worked extensively on McCain’s 2000 campaign, told me this weekend that, in his own way, McCain was the Donald Trump of his day. He sees a parallel in their willingness to ignore the party leaders, say what’s on their minds and give people straight talk.
He has a point. But McCain’s straight talk often involved insulting the base of his own party.
In McCain’s world, Trump voters were “wacko birds” and “crazies.” In “Game Change,” the much-praised (by the Left, anyway) book about the 2008 election, McCain is quoted as saying opponents of his amnesty solution for illegal immigration are “going to destroy the (expletive) party.”
“Listen to these people,” he reportedly said to fellow amnesty supporter Sen. Lindsey Graham. “Why would I want to be the leader of a party of such (expletives)?”
The point of bringing this up is not to speak ill of the dead, but to remind the media engaged in their hagiographic coverage that the dislike between McCain and the talk-radio base isn’t about allegiance to Trump. The two sides have been battling for years.
When McCain was losing badly to Barack Obama, he pulled Sarah Palin out of obscurity to rescue his failing campaign. It worked, in the short term. But when the media pile-on of Palin was complete, McCain threw her under the bus, saying later:
“I wish I’d picked Joe Lieberman instead.”
Nobody doubts that he meant it, either. And now, the same talk-radio Republicans McCain trashed are being trashed yet again for not fully celebrating the life of a guy who despised them.
Trump knows this, and I suspect that’s one reason why he’s reluctant to issue the sort of eulogy the media wants.
There’s also the fact that Trump hated the guy, and the feeling was mutual. Proactively disinviting the sitting president from your own funeral isn’t exactly “reaching across the political divide.”
Should the president be the bigger man? Should he celebrate the life of an American hero who suffered so much for our nation, its uniform and its flag?
I think so. But Trump knows his base. Trump knows the praise for McCain coming from Democrats and the media is praise for McCain’s willingness to support Democrats: their positions, their politics and their antipathy toward the Americans who made Trump president.
This is not an insult to Sen. McCain or his memory. He’s still a hero. People who deny that fact truly are crazies. And it’s true he was willing to tell people tough things they didn’t want to hear. But it’s hard not to notice that he reserved his toughest talk for his fellow Republicans.
I wish we had a better president. I wish we had more graciousness in American politics. I wish our political discourse could be elevated above current pettiness of “My team good, your team bad.” But it’s not. We’re here.
And one of the many people in American politics who helped us get here was Sen. John McCain.
McCain was for everything that would literally end right of center American - Amnesty, Campaign Finance, State Controlled Banking, Govt run Healthcare. That’s before you get to a soldier on every coordinate worldwide, ill equipped and poorly paid.
mcccain: Ptuh!
Filthy Traitor!
The Donald made money,lotsa money..That attracted attractive women...( Yeh, I know his Dad gave him a BIG start)
The McLame threw away a disabled, disfigured wife and kids for great looking blond nearly twenty years younger and worth millions..
Wonder why I not heard/ seen ANY mention of the first wife..Have U seen/ heard anything?
McButtface defines slime, corruption, ability to backstab, low morals, and complete ineptness.
Worms will turn from him in his grave.
Bacteria consider him too nasty.
Other than that the lying SOB was a fine....almost...man.
Eff him and the horse he rode in on.
I look at this way, you could have had the original version of Obama, or the carbon-copy of Obama (McCain). In the end, it didn’t matter...you were going to get a Democrat one way or another.
This is a demonstration to all RINOs of how much the media will love you if you turn on conservatives.
McCain was a tool of the Democrats.
It's fake love.
It’s more than Trump knows his base (regarding McCain). Trump knows McCain helped start the bogus investigation into make-believe Russian “collusion” that both didn’t exist and isn’t illegal anyway.
And it’s an investigation that is still going on and is the primary thorn in Trump’s side. If I was Trump it’d be hard to say nicey-nice things about McCain even after he died and supposedly became a saint.
Conservatives have long noted that McCain was never at the forefront of fighting leftists, but stayed behind the front lines, with a knife in hand, not just to stab conservatives in the back, but to jeer at them while doing so.
Possibly.
Obama WAS Satan's candidate.
That staffer who flew to London for the dossier: Could he be subpoenaed? I.D. him. Make sure no Republican hires him again.
Trump doesn’t just know his base.
He knows what McCain did.
And I don’t mean 50 years ago.
I think in some ways, Sarah was the only thing that helped to begin to turn the Obama tide. She did energize the ticket, the electorate and the election. Otherwise, McCain would have been totally buried. Then remember how Sarah, continued to lead the charge against Obama in his first term. She campaigned in those elections too to help the Republicans gain back the House.
McCain can (could) say what he wanted, but he was just wrong on so many things. Wacky birds is just like saying deplorables in my book.
I can’t wait for the funeral and fawning for the Democrat that reached across the aisle to aid the Republic and their countrymen. But, I will wait because it will never happen.
Possibly.
FWIW, we don’t know for certain that a staffer did fly to London for the dossier. McCain and Steele were both at a security conference in Halifax in 2016. Wonder what happened there...
A hero? To whom?
This just in...McCain is still dead.
Reportedly.
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