By: KEVIN JOLLY
Staff Writer
“…This country needs a strong Republican party. And we do. Not a cult, but a strong Republican party.” -Nancy Pelosi
What is a Republican? It may seem like an obvious question, but over the past nearly two decades, the answer has actually been getting more obfuscated. Literally, it’s an advocate for the Republican party, but on a deeper level, we typically ascribe a broader web of beliefs and positions when someone is given this label. The party has come a long way and changed its face drastically since initially winning the presidency with Lincoln, but in recent times this change has accelerated rapidly and in the dust lies many of their older values.
John McCain was a Republican senator who today is broadly remembered fondly for his reasonability, distinguished manner, and his valiant efforts to stand for what he believed in, even if it meant contradicting more attractive ideas within his party. This tendency and public image earned him the nickname, “maverick” several times over his career. Despite the party he belonged to, he wasn’t afraid to call out and stand against what he saw as wrong among his peers. William F. Buckley described McCain as “conservative” but not “a conservative”.
McCain had a few moments which stood out to define what he was about. During his 2008 campaign against President Obama, a voter told him, “We’re scared, we’re scared of an Obama presidency.” McCain’s response was, “I have to tell you, he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States.” During the same platform, McCain also shut down a woman who proposed a racist point that Obama was untrustworthy because he was “an Arab”, to defend his opponent again. Saying “No mam, he’s a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to disagree with on fundamental issues and that’s what this campaign is all about.” This could seem like the bare minimum for how a politician should carry themselves, but a presidential candidate defending their opponent goes far in how the public will treat discourse, and it’s something we don’t see much of anymore on the right, but on the left too to an extent.
McCain didn’t just do this in talk, but it showed in his legislative history too. McCain was among the top five Republicans most likely to vote alongside Obama during his presidency. In 2013, he voted alongside Obama more than half the time rather than against him. In one famous instance which sums up his career, in 2017, Republicans introduced a bill to essentially strip back or repeal in many ways the Affordable Care Act. The bill was processed in an unorthodox manner, as Republicans tried to rush the bill as quickly as possible, leading up to a dramatic and chaotic midnight debate in which senators had less than two hours to review this bill which would impact millions of Americans. McCain made a late appearance and brought the entire senate’s attention when he stood in the middle of the floor and gave a thumbs down to signify his vote against the bill, killing it. When asked about why he did it, McCain elaborated on his principles through his insightful statement, “I’ve stated time and time again that one of the major failures of Obamacare was that it was rammed through congress by Democrats on a strict party-line basis without a single Republican vote. We must now return to the correct way of legislating and send the bill back to committee, hold hearings, receive input from both sides of the aisle, heed the recommendations of the nation’s governors, and produce a bill that finally delivers affordable healthcare for the American people.” This quote really defines what McCain was all about. He didn’t necessarily disagree with the bill on a fundamental level, despite disapproving of Obamacare, but he always wanted to ensure these disagreements were worked out in an orderly and methodical manner.
His voting patterns which carved his name out as a politician of principles and dignity, also got him criticism from fellow Republicans. The Arizona Republican Party censured McCain for his pattern of a “Liberal voting record”. He was denounced by his Republican associates as a RINO (Republican in Name Only) and in recent times, a lot of Republican voters’ opinions have soured towards him. But did McCain really turn more liberal, or did the Republican party transform into something different in front of him? The late 2000s to early 2010s was indeed a changing time for Republicans. Possibly ironically by choosing Palin for his VP, McCain had arguably indirectly kickstarted the Tea Party movement which began as a more extreme flavor of American right-wing beliefs to provide an alternative to moderate Republicans who they saw as ineffective. Although the Tea Party didn’t last much longer, it was a prototype and sign of what was to come for the ramping up in extremist rhetoric within the right wing which would occur a few years later. While the Republican party began this increase in more extreme rhetoric, President Trump would be the one to spearhead the talk into action, harnessing the radical aspects of the right wing to explode in popularity and win an election nobody thought possible for him.
Trump’s conflict with McCain was more direct, however. McCain was a veteran of the Vietnam war, and more importantly, a prisoner of war. McCain’s aircraft had been shot down by a missile and after crashing, was taken into a Vietnamese prison camp in 1967. He was brutally tortured, denied medical care by his captors, and forced to spend two years in solitary confinement. Some of the torture he received was being bound and beaten at two-hour intervals to deny him ever getting comfortable. He suffered this treatment as a POW for five and a half years until being freed in 1973. Trump on the other hand, while McCain was being tortured, had avoided the draft five times, with the medical diagnosis of ‘spurred heels’, a condition which could be treated through stretching or minor surgery. In 2015 during an interview, Trump had this to say about McCain’s time as a POW, “He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.” He later retweeted a headline that read, “Donald Trump: John McCain Is ‘A Loser’”, in reference to ridiculing McCain in the same interview for losing the 2008 election. No matter which way you slice it, that is a truly disgusting remark and completely disrespectful to anyone either in the military or who has friends or family who served or is currently serving. But despite this heinous comment, along with other inflammatory statements, it never seemed to damage Trump’s reputation with Republicans anywhere near the levels assumed. In fact, one of McCain’s former closest friends who reflected many of his ideas, Lindsey Graham, went all in on supporting Trump’s new ideals along with many other Republicans after Trump won.
The reality is McCain wasn’t a RINO, he wasn’t a liberal, and he definitely wasn’t a ‘loser’. McCain was a Republican; A Republican with strong principles and dignity who always fought for what he saw was right. His party changed before his eyes and rejected him in their newfound extremism, something alien from what McCain’s era of Republicanism. We’re seeing the whiplash today of a new split in the party between what Biden has described as ‘MAGA’ Republicans which includes people like Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and obviously Trump, and the rest of the party who now wants to return back to something resembling McCain’s methods. McCain left behind a legacy of integrity and what the Republican party used to be, and what it should always strive to be. Quote, McCain described himself as saying, “Last but not least, I was a Republican, a Reagan Republican. Still am. Not a Tea Party Republican. Not a Breitbart Republican. Not a talk radio or Fox News Republican. Not an isolationist, protectionist, immigrant-bashing, scapegoating, get-nothing-useful-done Republican. Not, as I am often dismissed by self-declared ‘real’ conservatives, a RINO, Republican in Name Only. I’m a Reagan Republican, a proponent of lower taxes, less government, free markets, free trade, defense readiness, and democratic internationalism.”
Unfortunately, McCain passed away in 2018 from brain cancer. At his funeral, his daughter Meghan McCain said, “The America of John McCain does not need to be made great again, because it is already great.” Both George W. Bush and Obama, former major political rivals of McCain, gave thoughtful and sorrowful speeches of fond reminiscence for him too. Numerous big names arrived to show respect, some of them being Bill and Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Dick Cheney, Michelle Obama, and others. His funeral was a meeting of former friends and rivals alike who came together to express remorse over McCain and what he represented. McCain’s wife, Cindy, ensured Trump was not invited.
“Our political differences, no matter how sharply they are debated, are really quite narrow in comparison to the remarkably durable national consensus on our founding convictions.” -John McCain