It’s Veteran’s Day and John McCain is the first person I always think of on this special national holiday. I think of his story as a POW in Vietnam as he displayed a special courage as a man, an officer, and a patriot.
Politically…I’m probably what one might call a John McCain Republican. But since a Republican Party no longer exists I would currently decribe myself as an independent centrist who leans left on several social issues. In no way have I ever considered myself an ideologue either to the left or right.
In the twelve presidential elections I’ve been eligible to vote in…I’ve voted Republican six times, Democratic five times, and for an independent once. The independent was John Anderson in 1980.
I voted for Barack Obama twice, wrote in John McCain in 2016, and just voted for Joe Biden.
People on the far right would call me a squish or a RHINO for the manner of which I’ve veered left as I’ve grown older. I’d like to think with age and a more complete life experience….. I’ve learned from some of my mistakes and become a little smarter… and a little more empathetic to the big picture of life. I hope so.
We could genuinely use John McCain in the United States Senate right now. Our country could use someone from that side of the aisle who wouldn’t conduct his business in the senate chamber as a completely feckless coward with not a shread of courage to stand up to the never ending nonsense which has been enabled by the fifty-three GOP senators…Mitt Romney included.
Perhaps it was what John McCain learned as a Vietnam POW which made him so different from politicans who didn’t serve their country. Perhaps…if Donald Trump’s father had sent his son to Vietnam we would see a much more mature, sincere, genuine human being who held the highest office in the world and disgraced that office almost every day for four years. If you want to be a Twitter rock star…then be Charlie Sheen–not the leader of the free democratic world.
Maybe in four years…John McCainn could have had an impact on Donald Trump and made him a slightly better man. Probably not since Donald Trump never thinks or acts on behalf on anythig else but his own ego. But John McCain possibly could have had an impact on Donald Trump. But then again we’ve seen how Lindsey Graham turned out. Donald Trump evolving as a man probably wasn’t in any set of cards.
We do know this from this concession speech….Barack Obama made John McCain a better man and vice versa.
John McCain would have been on the phone with Joe Biden the day after this election offering help. That’s what a real hero and a patriot does.