How nice of the guy who sang about bombing Iran to snatch the mic away from a crazy person that would've made him look bad if he had agreed. This was back when republicans had to keep up appearances of decorum. His policies were still along the same lines as trump (and as bush before him).
John McCain never saw a war that he didn't want Americans fighting and dying in.
Or a bank not worth bailing out.
I'm sorry, how many bombers did you personally stop from bombing children in Laos?
None? Oh, you didn't even take an aircraft carrier out of commission during the vietnam war?
Edit: In case somebody didn't get the joke, Mccaine was a terrible pilot who crashed 2 planes and was involved in an incident that took a carrier out of commission and killed almost 200 soldier.
There's not a lot of people who directly did as much to slow the American war machine as Mccaine's incompetence.
a crazy person that would’ve made him look bad if he had agreed
The bitter truth was that McCain's political instincts sucked. He should have doubled down and gone with the crazy, rather than trying to play at respectability politics and wait to sabotage Obamacare from the cloak room of the Senate. His base didn't want to hear about how Obama's plan was a moderate reform to shore up a broken private system. They wanted to hear that the scary black man was going to kill whitey.
His policies were still along the same lines as trump (and as bush before him).
McCain took a full 180 on a litany of policies - climate change, health care, immigration, balancing the budget - the moment Obama stepped into the White House. But that's SOP for "moderate" Republican congressmen. Spend 20 years going to Think Tanks, agreeing with everyone, and saying you're going to deliver reform. Then torch a mountain of legislation because your rival hurt your feelings when he didn't let you win.
McCain
Yeah but also the reliance on 'norms' is part of the problem.
We relied on the 'norm' of R v W when no law was on the books stating otherwise.
We're relying on the 'norm' of a 2 term president when no law is on the books stating otherwise.
We need to actually codify norms into something enforceable if we want them to have real meaning. Otherwise they are just opinions.
when no law is on the books stating otherwise
There actually is one (even a constitutional amendment). It was introduced after Franklin D Roosevelt's served a third and a fourth term.
That's part of what makes Trump's talk of a 3rd term both ridiculous and terrifying. It would violate the Constitution, so a radical change to our country would have to happen for that to happen. All of our "inalienable rights" are guaranteed by the Constitution, so if they throw it away for a 3rd Trump term, they can throw it away for anything else they want. Want to go back to only white men who own land voting? It's the Constitution blocking that. Making treason a crime? The Constitution. Once they break that, we're hosed.
From a game theory perspective, it is impossible to create a system that is immune to bad faith actors. They will always find cracks to squeeze through. The people within the system have to proactively police against bad faith actors.
You can make a system thats immune- you just have to make they pay offs force a better result than being self interested. The mafia broke the prisoners dilemma by killing everyone that confessed - we should apply the same and execute Trump for attempting to breach the constitution for his own self interest. See how many people try again.
That's true. Relying on norms is a problem.
But, I think it's still worth pointing out that there has been a wild shift.
Maybe there have never been good Republicans. Maybe. That's irrelevant.
Consider the man who took down McCarthy: a republican crushing a "fellow" republican. There existed a point, where the man who asked "Have you no decency?" Was "on the same team".
There is nuance to the conversation. I don't ask a republican to be ashamed for identifying as a republican. I only ask them to be ashamed of the state of the Republican party. Don't tell people you're the party of Lincoln. BE the party of Lincoln.
"How Democracies Die" goes into quite a bit of detail about this -- basically, it is impossible to run a system purely by making the right laws, because the system is made of people. The laws can say whatever you want. If the people start to betray them, the system will fold.
In practice (so says the book) every single democratic government depends on a structure of norms, and violation of norms and laws goes hand in hand to form the eventual collapse into fascism when it happens.
They also say that resistance from the establishment conservatives (that the fascists are trying to invade and co-opt from within) is generally the key factor that can prevent a fascist takeover. Which is pretty fuckin worrying when you look at the modern Republicans.
He also gave us Palin, the precursor of brain dead politicians.
Ever heard of Michelle Bachmann? Newt Gingrich? Mike Huckabee?
Palin wasn't any kind of precursor. She was right in the center of the pack.
Im a fairly progressive person.
When he ran I was totally going to vote for him.
Then he chose Palin as his VP. Not because she's a woman. I thought that was dope. It was when she spoke. Bridge to nowhere bs totally ruined him.
I just want as time where election results were respected and transfer of power came without violence.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/19/trump-campaign-election-monitoring-00153217
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-rnc-vote-monitor-election-integrity-rcna148557
They will delay certification of results where they can. They will do everything to steal this election.
In that election I actually liked/wanted McCain, and this was one of the highlights for me (looking back, rose-tinted I'm sure).
It showed that McCain was still an honest person (comparatively), and had integrity/ethics.
I liked McCain as well, until he picked Palin. On that day I changed my party affiliation from R to I because I knew there was no room under the big tent for a person like me.
Me too. Then he absolutely lost me after Palin. What an idiot of a person. She can see Russia from her house?!?!
While she was the alpha version of Bobert/Green and dumb as hell, she never said that. It was the SNL bit that did and many of us remember her saying it, but she didn't.
McCain is almost single-handedly responsible for helping birth the tea party in that election. He made an alliance with the growing far right (still without the official name “the tea psrty” at that point in time, but undoubtedly connected) to win the election, and they grew in power since then. Yeah, a big part of their rise was Obama being Black. But another huge piece to that puzzle was McCain making Palin his running mate.
