Today, Reuters reported that tributes were given to John McCain at the monument in Vietnam depicting his capture as a Naval pilot in 1967. The communist government announced that it would sponsor a study tour for Vietnamese students in the United States, to be named in honor of both McCain and fellow veteran Senator John Kerry, in respect to their attempts to rebuild America’s relationship with Vietnam after the war.
It remains to be seen if the McCain family will receive a similar peace gesture from the Republican Party.
After his release from Vietnam, McCain was appointed the Navy’s liaison to the US Senate from 1977 to 1981, when he retired from service. He took this experience as a transition to the world of politics. He was elected an Arizona Congressman in 1982 and in 1986 succeeded Barry Goldwater as Senator from Arizona. At the time, McCain, as a pro-military, anti-abortion Senator, was a strong figure in the Republican Party. McCain went his own way as a Senator, at least at first, and in doing so became a target for Rush Limbaugh and other conservative trend-setters. He agreed to confirm Bill Clinton’s choices for the Supreme Court, liberal centrists Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. His signature legislation after Clinton was co-sponsoring a campaign finance reform act with liberal Senator Russ Feingold, which was only signed in 2002 by President Bush after a great deal of opposition from McCain’s fellow Republicans.
And while McCain decried the current tone in politics, he is largely responsible for creating it. When he was running against (then) Senator Barack Obama in 2008, he decided to pick as his running mate Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, whose know-nothing resentment made her the John the Baptist to Donald Trump’s Cheeto Jesus. When McCain died, Vox did an article showing exactly how McCain’s choice of running mate set the stage for “reality TV politics.” Of course while Vox put a proper degree of blame on McCain for his choice, they buried the underlying reason for that choice: “McCain was prepared to put Palin a ‘heartbeat away from the presidency’ without even checking if she could do the job. Instead, he picked her because she seemed like a good play to the base.”
Rather than McCain setting the tone for the GOP, the rot had already set in by 2008, and McCain chose Palin because he chose to go with the trend of his Party. So despite his “maverick” reputation, McCain ultimately pleased neither the moderates who saw him as a standard against the new Right nor the new Right who saw him as a RINO.
This is the problem with presenting oneself simultaneously as a “straight talk” character and a politician who strives for “civility.” The common thread between the two postures would be a desire to stand up for the right thing regardless of politics. But the end result with McCain was quite often the worst of both worlds: a centrist position that alienated both the progressive Left and conservatives, especially on foreign policy, where McCain’s hawkish position was in opposition to both the Left and right-wing factions (libertarians and paleoconservatives) who were opposed to America’s continued military adventures. McCain’s civility also served as cover for uncivil conservatives like Palin, and however much he attacked Donald Trump indirectly, he and fellow “good” conservatives like his junior Senator Jeff Flake did not take specific actions in the Senate to shut down procedures of the Trump agenda. For example, both men voted to confirm Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. McCain also supported Trump’s controversial arms deal to Saudi Arabia. Considering that McCain’s last act in the Senate was to vote against Republicans’ last attempt to repeal Obamacare, it is hard to say why he would take that act of defiance in the face of a larger pattern of Republican orthodoxy, and hard to say how things would have been different if he had been half the maverick that his reputation suggested.
John McCain was famously humble for a politician… and often for good reason. But even then his humility and ability to take stock of himself seem to be lacking in public figures today. It also meant that, after a life of physical hardship and two unsuccessful presidential campaigns, his continued career meant he understood that “public service” meant serving the public even if the public did not reward his desire for prestige. Again, a rare trait. And of course, John McCain was well known for his sense of humor. McCain was the guy who said, “the nice thing about Alzheimer’s is that you can hide your own Easter eggs.”
That’s what I liked about him.
The death of John McCain is not literally the death of the Republican Party, but it is certainly the death of McCain’s brand of politics. In the wake of his loss, anyone who cares about this country is going to have to consider how to stand outside the political divide to consider what is actually the best policy for this country. That was a standard that he set but often failed to uphold, and that few have bothered to follow.