Bad Math

Anyone paying attention as John McCain conceded the 2008 Presidential election to Barack Obama was struck by the chasm between the candidate and his supporters. The Senator’s words were eloquent and conciliatory, awash in higher purpose. The people had spoken, said McCain, and it was nothing but patriotic to acknowledge what the numbers made clear. The fact that a black man had ascended to the highest office was grasped graciously; the moment in history not escaping him. Black America had every reason to be proud and the new President could count on his full support in the day’s ahead, promised McCain. It was the perfect speech, delivered with the graceful conviction of a man more interested in the well being of his nation than humoring his own disappointment… And it went over like a lead balloon.

The crowd was all out to even humor their candidate. Every sentence was met with a chorus of “nooos”, and outright boos when Obama’s name was mentioned. Nobody was in the mood to be conciliatory, the apocalypse was nigh. Had Sarah Palin, fidgeting a few feet away, looking like she had swallowed a very bitter pill, grabbed the mic from her running mate and screamed the election was rigged and she conceded nothing, the room would have exploded in rapturous resentment.

Good guys don’t just finish last, they lose to uppity troublemakers like Obama. This was not a group looking to widen any tents, next time they’d get a guy or gal (few cared Palin couldn’t pass a 5th grade current events quiz) not afraid to throw punches and get a little dirty. Right then and there, as an American Hero accepted defeat like – a hero – the Republican Party base made clear the low road was exactly where they wanted to travel henceforth. The demonization of John McCain had begun.

Not a day went by during Obama’s first term that Fox/AM didn’t vilify traitors to the “conservative” cause. Like white civil rights volunteers of the 60s, who Jim Crow bottom feeders denounced as enemies of their own people, Rush never met a moderate Republican he didn’t want to abase; RINOs were scum, and needed to be purged.

Of course the Fox/AM definition of moderate applied to anyone uncomfortable with Obama as a Kenyan, or Cass Sunstein as a secret agent of totalitarianism. Once the Tea Party was consumed by Ailes and company, Fox/AM personalities were increasingly relied on to determine just who was “us” and, more importantly, who was “them”. John McCain ever so gradually moved fully out of favor, “maverick” becoming a derisive term on Hannity and The Factor. Website commenters grew emboldened, and personal. “Songbird McCain” started making the rounds as stories suggesting his stay at the Hanoi Hilton was far more comfortable than the myth created by NBC et al. began to proliferate.

When Romney was trounced after Dick Morris, who had become an every night guest on the Fox prime time trioka, promised a landslide, the narrative went fully off the rails. The game had to be rigged; how else to explain a second Obama term? The crisis was existential, liberal “progress” had stolen “our” country. It was no longer enough to vote against the Obama agenda, rhetoric must be unhinged, candidates for 2016 had two options…nasty and nastier; truth was optional at best, ends justified any means. The GOP core had gone rotten and anyone looking to lead them better put grievance and resentment before all else or, as Jeb Bush quickly learned, his $100 million war chest proved worthless, their campaigns would be over quicker than Bill O’Reilly could settle a harassment claim.

The rest is sorrowful history, which has us now in uncharted waters, reeling daily from a head-to-toe Fox/AM creation. It’s easy to wave off the indignities coming from the White House as John McCain prepares to lay in state at the Capitol. Trump’s infantilism is now normalized, expected, really. One can readily imagine L’Enfant Terrible screaming to nobody in particular he wants that f***in flag back to full staff! And his silent treatment toward granting the nemesis his clinical narcissism and insecurity alone created standard Presidential courtesy is merely a repeat of previous tantrums he’s thrown, most notably with Germany’s Merkel, who fully uncovered his unworthiness for office.

Yet and still, it’s a bad mistake to simply stop at Trump  in these situations because the behavior is so much more than a sad reflection of his own frailties. In fact, dissing McCain right down the line is a no brainer freebie he gets to throw to his wretched core, who always demand the worst. They are the client his survival depends on, and kicking a dead man for easy points has no real downside.

By Trump’s warped calculus, had he acted like any other POTUS, that is, with dignity and respect, what would it have achieved? The fake news would still be calling for his head, and the news cycle would ignore him. Remember, any news is good news. Moreover, Trump’s base now hates McCain, probably more than anyone but HRC and Obama. Ten years of hourly attacks will do that.

People say this is Trump’s GOP, it’s not. It’s Fox/AM’s laboratory. Trump merely panders to its sedition better than their wildest dreams could have conjured. But worse for all of us than Trump is a legacy, embodied by the GOP roster, that codifies his sociopathic spasms as standard operating procedure for governance, fully in service to a base of despicables, who spit on an American hero’s dead body for giggles.

In Arizona, Trumpie Kelli Ward, soundly beaten by McCain in his final primary race, is running her campaign to replace retiring Jeff Flake by the emerging nihilist playbook, right down to disgusting personal abasement. Her opponent, Congresswoman Martha McSally, is trying to tip toe the line, giving full lip service to building the wall, and scapegoating anyone brown, but maintaining a modicum of respect in her personal comportment. Ward was abominable during McCain’s final days, actually implying he announced his decision to stop treatment with hurting her candidacy in mind. McSally put out a glowing tribute to McCain, and has afforded him the respect he earned. McSally was comfortably ahead of Ward several weeks ago. McCain’s passing is all that has changed since then. Trump will be tweeting an effusive endorsement for Ward any hour. Where the numbers go will provide a barometer to measure the extent of our ruination. BC