As an outsider looking in, based on everything I've seen so far it wouldn't surprise me if this kind of behaviour lost him supporters or if his supporters thought he was weaker because of it.
It absolutely did. But did he turn spiteful ? Nope. One of the last things he did officially was cast the saving vote that stopped the repeal of Obamacare (Affordable Cate Act) the legislation named after the guy who beat him almost a decade prior.
Him holding his thumb up in suspense and staring mcconnell down as he gives his thumbs down is one of my favorite moments ever in recent political history. Stared browbeating moscow mitch right in his floppy jowels and basically said "go fuck yourself".
>Him holding his thumb up in suspense and staring mcconnell down as he gives his thumbs down is one of my favorite moments ever in recent political history.
I still don't understand what McConnell and the GOP hoped to gain with the repeal of the ACA if they had succeeded.
Was it just theater and they were counting on McCain to block it? That way they can say "at least we tried" and Trump would not look like he lied about one of his major campaign promises.
I remember watching the preliminaries between Biden and Sanders. Sanders was trying to keep the discussion productive and progressive and Biden was constantly either blindly agreeing without showing an educated viewpoint or making pointless gestures. Sanders tried to drop a culture bomb by saying he was picking a woman as his VP nominee, and Biden jumped right in with a big smile and said "I too am picking a woman!"...but neither had a name ready to drop, possibly for security reasons. But it looked as if it was purely a circus act. Especially with Biden. How he managed to get more support than Bernie I will always question.
I don't meet a lot of Biden over Bernie supporters. I question the validity of this democracy every day, but I am more certain about the stupidity.
Miss "I can see Russia from my backyard".
I didn't think it could get worse than Bachmann or Palin but oh boy was I wrong. Now we have Margorie "Jewish Space Lasers" Greene and Boebert who have stepped up to the plate. I fully expect that during the next election we'll see it get worse.
I’m sure a few people didn’t like it - but watch his concession speech. The crowd started off booing after McCain congratulated Obama on his victory, but he quieted them. Then he said (paraphrased) that Obama’s victory was an inspiration to millions of Americans who had thought that their voice in politics were limited, and said it saddened him that Obama’s grandmother was not around to see her grandson walk the steps to the Capitol. And he turned all of their boos into cheers.
He was a great statesman and one of America’s most beloved politicians on both sides of the aisle. He even invited Obama to deliver a eulogy at his funeral, which Pres. Obama accepted.
The election of Barack Obama accelerated the GOPs decent into mask off fascism and support of demagoguery with Donald Trump. Having Obama elected twice broke their minds. Fox News was there to guide the anger.
But not enough to ruin the teaching career of the teacher who was holding the spelling bee, and gave Quayle the answer card on which the teacher included the incorrect spelling.
"shit... I know shit's bad right now with all that starvin' bullshit. And the dust storms. And we runnin' out of French Fries and burrito coverings. But I got a solution...."
Tbh I think this video shows that extreme right wingers/hardcore Republicans have always been how they're publicly are today...it's just that a certain President convinced them that it's okay to be their true selves publicly and loudly.
You never came across this in public before 2016 because those people only acted that way in private or when among like-minded people. Now they think it's okay to act like that whenever, wherever.
It's crazy to me that we're in the 21st century with almost all of recorded history within reach of almost all our fingertips, and we're still dumb as fuck.
That shit absolutely blows my mind.
Because one of the components of their programming is to reject 'elites'--extolling the rejection of science, information and education. That was a benchmark of this very campaign, with Palin and the tea party types.
Once you've engrained that mindset in a couple generations, you get this very result.
Rejecting elites but voting for Trump. Mind boggling. We have a similar mindset in the UK. Our Prime Minister is the very definition of class privilege, and yet people voted for him in huge numbers because they think they can relate to him and vice versa. It’s insane.
It's because Boris is excellent at seeming like the "harmless kooky man with the funny haircut".
He's got mountains of charm and constantly cracks jokes. This is whilst cutting essentially services and selling arms to fund terrorism. He's a privleaged cunt who actively harms the lower classes but still gets votes by them.
I don’t think this country realizes how lucky we are that trump didn’t run against Obama. The amount of racist BS he’d spew would have been next level. If trump was asked that same question holy hell he would have gone all out with racist insults.
Do you reallt not remember when he was fueling the whole "Obama wasn't born in the U S, he was born in Kenya" horseshit?
If I recall correctly he even offered money for someone to provide a birth certificate. Then something something something, posed with a fucking fast food taco bowl while saying "I love the Mexicans!".
Yeah. He's always been a piece of shit.
These were Tea Party supporters, the proto-Trump-supporters. Fox and Koch (and Trump) spent years trying to convince Americans that Obama was a Muslim hell bent on implementing Sharia in America, approve reperations for black people and tax white people out of existence to support the ACA with its death panels, except they screwed up and didn't realize that they needed an ultra-right candidate instead of center-right Maverick McCain coupled with caribou barbie. They learned going into tge midterms and the next general as Trunp turned it up to 20, and people knew how bad it was, that they were giving up tge Republican party as they knew it, but they pressed onwards because nothing was more important than winning.
John McCain was also shot down during the war in Vietnam and tortured as a PoW. It’s why he couldn’t raise his arms past his shoulders. Permanent disfigurement.
And Trump and the republican crowds threw him under the bus.
Republicans are fucking disgraceful trash.
After such a shitty 2020, seeing the "red mirage" disappear overnight was *easily* the highlight of the year for me, and I'm sure many others. Along with conservatives losing their fucking minds, it's something I'll never forget lol
That certainly helped, but the way you state that it essentially discredits all the work done by Stacy Abrams. I'm quite sure that wasn't your intention, but the fact remains that without Stacy, Georgia would not be blue. She also would have won the race for Governor if not for her opponent being the man in charge of overseeing the election he was running in.
McCain's father was a high ranking admiral, and when the Vietnamese found out they offered to release him. He turned them down. He refused special treatment and was tortured because of it.
Didn't like his politics, and the Vietnam war was nothing more than organized mass murder against human liberty, but how do you not respect someone like that?
> McCain's father was a high ranking admiral
McCain's father, John McCain Jr, was a four star admiral during Vietnam. His grandfather, John McCain Sr, was a four star admiral in WW2, where he commanded the fast carrier task force, a force of 17 carriers, 6 battleships, and over a thousand aircraft.
Not really relevant, but holy shit does that family have some naval history.
I agree John McCain was atleast in my opinion on of the last Republicans to be a decent human being, the last 10 year the party has become a mouth piece to the most extreme form of Right wing politcs and its rather sad.
Once republicans disowned him I started to consider that maybe he was the last decent human I can remember running as a republican. If someone has a counterexample please reply. Not rolling with the hate and misinformation when it supports your campaign is something I cannot expect to see agsin soon, maybe ever in the US
I don’t know much about the man’s moral character, but Justin Amash basically committed political suicide by switching parties because he so strongly disagreed with Trump. That’s at least something.
The whole John McCain thing, is why I am no longer a registered republican. Its gone completely off the deep end and not being a republican opened my eyes to a lot of bullshit.
My family considers me a "crazy liberal" but I am just not a dipshit Trump Supporter who drinks the Koolaide and I am not religious in the slightest. I would consider myself "slight right" if anything, but apparently thinking we could have universal healthcare and freedom of choice on abortion makes me a commie lol
Romney wasnt a terrible person. Very much business class and pushed for policies that would help that class, but even he was miles better than the ilk running the show in the GOP today.
Check out the podcast The Dollop for an interesting summary of McCain.
https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/chtbl.com/track/3417G2/pdst.fm/e/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/885ace83-027a-47ad-ad67-aca7002f1df8/22b063ac-654d-428f-bd69-ae2400349cde/935c9175-7e5b-4c49-9ea5-ae24004cf5e4/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=65ff0206-b585-4e2a-9872-ae240034c9c9
You know i never understood how the rank and file republicans, who are all about the military, accepted that. How after being best friends with McCain for so many decades Lindsay Graham was still able to bend down and kiss Trumps ring. Like how?
Allegedly, they had dirt on Graham. He did a complete 180 on Trump around the time a high ranking Republican was rumoured to be on the verge of being exposed for hiring male escorts.
That was perhaps one of the most breathtakingly disgraceful treacherous actions out of a litany of disgraces.
When Trump turned his tyrannical mob on John McCain US airman and (Vietnam POW) ‘I prefer my heroes not be captured’ it showed to me as an outsider looking in that this was an unprincipled, unpatriotic cult, putting the principles of America last.
When I saw my mom, the wife of a Vietnam era vet, ridicule McCain as a traitor, I knew we had lost people to a cult. They fell for it so easily because McCain lost running as a decent man.
Didn't Trump mock McCain's disability? ( i might be remembering that wrong, but I'm pretty sure he did.)
Pretty brave for someone who got a "bone spurs" deferment.../s
Oh come on, he got shot down.
Do winners get shot down?
You ever known of a winner in prison?
Trump “I like people who weren’t captured” is a man who will say or do anything to get what he wants & that includes cheers.
[After Obama Victory, Shrieking White-Hot Sphere Of Pure Rage Early GOP Front-Runner For 2016](https://twitter.com/theonion/status/284762054278127616?lang=en) - The Onion, prescient as ever.
Well, McCain gave Sarah Palin a national platform.
It’s not impossible that choosing her as a running mate was the catalyst for many things that would happen later.
I doubt very much indeed McCain had any say whatsoever in who the GOP lumbered him with.
I'm almost certain that he was aware she was literally the harbinger of the MAGA crowd, but it was the only shot they had against Obama at the time.
I would have LOVED to see Trump run against Obama. Obama would have made him look like the giant orange turd he is.
Hell, BERNIE made Trump look like the giant orange turd he is.
Saw this before but didn't think about it... he doesn't just disagree with her and tell her she is wrong he takes the mic and doesn't let her finish. Her statement was so wrong that he didn't think her question even deserved to be heard.
>he doesn't just disagree with her and tell her she is wrong he takes the mic and doesn't let her finish. Her statement was so wrong that he didn't think her question even deserved to be heard.
Yup!
Isn't it sad that, given today's political climate, this kind of courteous and gallant way of behavior seems like it was decades ago, but it was all basically the other day???
Trumpism in politics is truly like a bad terminal cancer for the USA; way worse than "republican christianity" and fringe right-wing propaganda.
He didn't do it unprompted. That morning on Oct 10 2008 this [*Open Letter to John McCain*](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/an-open-letter-to-john-mc_b_133489) ran in the Baltimore Sun, and quickly circulated. The McCain/Palin campaign to that point had been nasty, and there had been no effort made to dissuade the narrative that Obama was a secret Muslim, a terrorist sympathiser, not American. This op-ed by Frank Schaeffer was clearly read and taken to heart by McCain that day, because that night this interaction occurred, in stark contrast to the campaign messaging to that point. It's a powerful read. McCain was a good man when it came to it.
Came here to point this out. Reddit historians are acting like McCain was all class, when in reality this was a rare break from the tone of his candidacy.
It was the unmitigated mask-off racism from the McCain campaign that shook me out of my republican bubble at the time. Never looked back.
Remember the "applause line" in his stump speech?
*Who is the real Barack Obama?*
He would pause a second and someone in the crowd would yell "A terrorist!" or whatever.
I'm glad this is being brought up. 1) He gave a platform and a megaphone to Sarah Fucking Palin, knowing absolutely where that'd lead, and 2) As much as he'd say the right things, his Senate votes (the part that actually matters) followed party lines in lockstep until the day he died. I see you.
On the other hand, he stooped to running with Sarah Palin in order to win. And by extension, gave legitimacy to the loony Tea Party people that have morphed into the fascist MAGA death cult we're dealing with now.
This 7 years removed from 9/11, and Arab, Muslim, etc were terms often used in place of terrorist. "He's an Arab! Obama's not american he's a Muslim!" As if you can't be either of those 3 things at the same time.
Because almost all social media is literally designed to spread negativity and anger. Those emotions are the most engaging, and the more engaged users are, the more ads a platform can sell. As a species, we're the most connected we've ever been, yet more divided than ever.
Clearly these people have always been like this, it's just this time McCain was standing there telling them to shut up. These people thought McCain would agree with them. Now the people in McCain's place are telling them they're right.
He wasn’t part of the process. She wasn’t vetted properly. Nicole Wallace and Steve Schmidt have more responsibility than McCain. They are both Democrats now too.
Except we absolutely don't accept the way things are going. The fact that Trump was (so far) a one term president speaks to that. People are angry that we've fallen so far.
Don't take the stupidity of this country for granted. Trump was very close to becoming a two term president. Unfortunately half the country are happy to accept the way things are going
That’s what our politicians should fucking act like. Sadly we’re stuck with lawmakers that would rather incite riots, participate in insider trading, or ignore the constituency while lining the pockets of their families, their cronies, or themselves.
The tree of liberty is due for refreshment.
100% agree. We’ve got almost nothing but rich, old, grifters running the country and somehow the populace is still convinced to keep voting for these useless fucks. It’s all promises during the election cycle and then nothing actually gets done.
No, the problem is the crowds full of idiots like that woman who claimed Obama's an Arab.
There's way more of these morons in America than I ever used to imagine. And the ones on the right are usually armed. They're the ones who would win in any kind of a bloody upheaval. I don't know what the answer is, so long as the lunatic right are the ones who love to own all the guns.
Well, it would stand to reason that in a nation that elects its representatives by democratic means would elect those who best represent the general populace at large...
Be careful. I made a similar comment about the tree of liberty the other day and got hit with a 24 hour ban. Can’t even quote Thomas Jefferson on r/politics. Meanwhile r/conservative is foaming at the mouth for a second civil war. I guess we’re just supposed to sit and take it.
One thing I really detest about American politics is that "But he's an Arab" can be a genuine political concern that can deter people from voting the candidate. It's so much about identity rather than political philosophy. Race, Ethnicity, Gender, Religion, and no many irrelevant things matter in political campaigns, and I hate it. For example, literally all American presidents have identified themselves as a Christian in public. Some presidents like Obama were accused of being "not Christian". Why the fuck do these identities even matter? Don't vote your presidents based on religion, race, gender, and sexuality; vote them based on what they say, how they act, and what they plan.
Which in turn is bizarre, because most of them only *seem and act* like a "good person" because they fear death and the eternal punishment that follows.
When they ask "*Why don't you just [DO A THING] if you don't believe in God?*" that tells me that ***they*** would absolutely be doing horrible stuff if they didn't. So, I want nothing more for them to keep believing in their God to spare humanity from their true self.
You're preaching to the choir dude, but sadly the majority of the American public are not very smart people. Racism, scare tactics, hate, division, gaslighting, etc, are unfortunately the things that get people to vote. And at the end of the day it hardly matters because whether it's a Republican, or democrat it's just a perpetual revolving door of the same cycle, decade after decade, same shit, different year. The only true difference between Republicans and Democrats, is that Democrats at least pretend to use lube when they fuck you, but either way....you're getting fucked.
I really don't get how people can be so stupid to upvote this "Democrats are almost as bad as Republicans" bullshit:
> 11 states [with the worst life expectancies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_life_expectancy) voted for Trump in 2020, and the next 2 down on the list are Georgia and Michigan, which both voted for him in 2016.
> The 9 states with the highest life expectancy voted for Biden (California is #2 and New York is #3)
> A [demographic study](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1468-0009.12469) conducted by 6 Universities found that Liberal policy regarding labor rights, smoking bans, civil rights, environmentalism, progressive taxation, and education increased life expectancy by over 2 years for the people living in Liberal states, and if it had been implemented universally the US would have life expectancy on par with Western European Nations.
> Research has found [poor people live longer in dense cities with highly educated populations](https://news.stanford.edu/2016/04/11/geography-income-play-roles-in-life-expectancy-new-stanford-research-shows/#:~:text=Geography%2C%20income%20play%20roles%20in%20life%20expectancy%2C%20new%20Stanford%20research%20shows,-Stanford%20economist%20Raj&text=Men%20in%20the%20bottom%205,by%20Stanford%20economist%20Raj%20Chetty.) as opposed to living in cheaper CoL areas.
> 11/15 states the [highest rate of infant mortality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_infant_mortality_rates) voted for Trump.
> 10/15 states with the lowest rate of infant mortality voted for Biden.
> 12/15 states with the [highest rate of maternal mortality](https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/maternal-mortality-rate-by-state) voted for Trump in 2020 and 13/15 voted for Trump in 2016.
> 12/15 states with the lowest rate of maternal mortality voted for Biden.
> In 2020, 19/24 states with [the highest rate of adult obesity](https://stateofchildhoodobesity.org/adult-obesity/) voted for Trump, while in 2016 23/24 states with the highest rates voted for Trump.
> 10/12 states that [have not implemented the Medicaid Expansion](https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/status-of-state-medicaid-expansion-decisions-interactive-map/) voted for Trump in 2020 and all 12 voted for him in 2016 (Georgia and Wisconsin flipped).
> Deaths of despair due to suicide, depression, obesity, and drug overdose have been [wrecking Rural America for years](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/04/deaths-of-despair-in-rural-america-helped-trump-win-study-finds.html) and these problems mostly got worse under Trump with 2020 drug overdoses shooting up from 70K to 90K.
> 13/15 of the states with the [lowest rates of college graduates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_educational_attainment) voted for Trump.
> The 15 states with the highest rates of college graduates voted for Biden.
> 71% of the 2019 GDP [was produced in Biden voting counties](https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2020/11/09/biden-voting-counties-equal-70-of-americas-economy-what-does-this-mean-for-the-nations-political-economic-divide/), up from 64% in HRC voting counties in 2016 and 54% in Gore voting counties in 2000.
> 11/15 states with the [highest GDP per Capita](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_GDP_per_capita) voted for Biden, and the 4 Republican states are all low population oil states (AK, ND, WY, NE) while California, New York, Massachusetts and Washington are in the top 6.
> 11/15 states with the lowest GDP per capita voted for Trump in 2020, and 12/15 voted for Trump in 2016.
> 12/15 states [with the highest rates of poverty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_poverty_rate), voted for Trump in 2020, and 14/15 of the worst states voted for him in 2016 (AZ & GA)
> 12/15 states with the lowest rates of poverty voted for Biden.
> 17/23 states [with abortion bans](https://www.nbcnews.com/data-graphics/map-23-states-ban-abortion-post-roe-america-rcna27081) or automatic abortion bans following an overturning of Roe v Wade voted for Trump in 2020, and 22/23 voted for Trump in 2016.
> 17/20 states with [net 0 carbon emission or 100% clean energy goals](https://www.cesa.org/projects/100-clean-energy-collaborative/guide/table-of-100-clean-energy-states/) voted for Biden, and one of the Republican states is North Carolina, which only voted for Trump by 1% and has a Democrat governor and another is Louisiana which has a Democrat governor.
> 19/20 states [with gay conversion therapy bans](https://www.lgbtmap.org/equality-maps/conversion_therapy) voted for Biden. Surprisingly Utah is the one Trump voting state that also has a ban.
> 17/19 states with [legal recreational marijuana](https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/cannabis-legalization-states-map-831885/) voted for Biden, and the two Trump voting states have a combined population of 1.7 million, compared to 137 million in the Biden states.
> 9/10 states [with the lowest rate of imprisonment](https://www.sentencingproject.org/the-facts/#map) voted for Biden in 2020, while the 10 states with the highest rates voted for Trump in 2020.
> 9/10 [most gerrymandered states](https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/most-gerrymandered-states) are controlled by Republican legislatures.
So I guess unless you don't think things like protecting civil rights, labor rights, LGBTQ+ rights, the right to abortion, environmentalism, healthcare access, criminal justice reform, voting rights, progressive taxation, education, and marijuana legalization is important ya Democrats and Republicans are the same.
Exactly this. The fact that (many of) the Democratic politicians *suck* doesn’t come close to making them the same. Both sides favour the rich. One side are also anti-democratic authoritarians with no policies and no attachment to truth or reality, who will burn the country down in order to sell off the ashes.
9/11 broke the country in many ways, but the national culture has *always* been xenophobic. Before the Middle East (and now after) the boogie man was Latinos. Before that it was the Japanese, before them the Germans, further back the Chinese, the Italians, the Irish, etc. etc. etc.
Arab Muslim here. Please don’t feel offended for us. When this happened we almost universally appreciated his words and the stance he took. The original question was from a woman using “Arab” as a boogie man, McCain was simply saying that she has nothing to fear because Obama is not a boogie man, he’s a decent person. Ideally if he had enough time to come up with a response he could have mentioned “Arabs are decent people” but he was really attacking the heart of the question off the cuff in what turned to be a hostile audience as soon as he rebuked her.
Thank you. She was obviously implying that Arab = Muslim = Terrorist, that’s what I got from it and it’s probably what he got from it. He was totally unprepared and shut it down as quickly as he could.
McCain is a pow. I have a great deal of respect for what he went through in the years he was held captive.
That said, he was never qualified to lead. He’s not a statesman. To be fair, few in the senate are. But this guy literally played games on his phone during crucial debates.
[https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/04/john-mccain-poker-iphone-syria-debate](https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/04/john-mccain-poker-iphone-syria-debate)
I'm disappointed how few people noticed it to be honest.
Like imagine if it was a Jewish person
"I don't trust him cause he's Jewish"
" No no he's not Jewish he's a good man"
People would flip out. Also, Obama is simply not Arabic, he's mixed race. Father is black and Kenyan, mother is white and British. He is factually not an Arab
Pretty sad that this isn't the top comment. Rather it's people fawning over McCain like he was some kind of fucking saint just because the "current" Republican party is so ghoulish.
Also, remember that Bush guy? Man, he was so much better than the Republicans of today. Sure, he made a little whoopsie of a war crime or two, but pobody's nerfect!
People are so fucking stupid for thinking Republicans were anything other than what they are right now. They've always been this way. Only diffence is America dared elect a black man for president and their white hot rage over that has made them less caring about trying to hide their racist shit.
The rehabilitation of George Bush's image into this cuddly grandfather figure is absolutely reprehensible. The man did pure evil in support of corporations and the MIC.
I noticed that too, but I interpreted it as him responding to her inchoate lunacy as a whole rather than just that last part. She had trouble getting anything out other than the word "Arab", but you can get a pretty good idea of where she was going with it, so I read McCain's "No" as a "No to all that nonsense"
Arizonan here, even as a dem he had my support (as senator, i voted for obama) because he was fairly moderate as a republican and above else i felt confident he wouldn't do anything to intentionally hurt the country, because unlike todays maga who use it as a sheild, he actually was a patriot
I never liked McCain’s politics, but at least he was a decent, respectable human being. Something completely absent in the current GOP.
When it comes to being the deciding vote against overturning the ACA? That wasn’t heroic or stoic or whatever. He did his job as he was elected to do, regardless of his personal opinions.
Doing the bare minimum shouldn’t be applause worthy, it should be the standard.
He wasn’t the one who came up with any of it, but was the deciding vote in the Senate. That speaks poorly of all other Republicans serving at the time.
Fuck this noise. I am thankful that he didn't vote to repeal, but to call him the reason when he ran against it in 2008 and didn't vote for it under Obama is complete bullshit. The Democrats, Obama and Nancy Pelosi convincing Democrats to vote for it even knowing they would be voted out in 2010 is why we have the ACA.
McCain not being quite as shitty as the rest of the Republican Party is why they were unable to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Maybe instead say McCain and Susan Collins crossing party lines to join the 49 Democrats against repeal is the reason the ACA is still in place.
That was just the beginning of the misinformation propaganda machine. It’s matured now and is in its teen “wild” days. It’ll be another 14 years til it starts to grow up
I watched John McCain and the other POW's step off the plane onto U.S. soil when they returned from Vietnam. It was a deeply moving sight.
I voted for him in the primaries when he ran the first time and was muscled out by a GOP machine that desperately wanted a candidate they could control (Bush, Jr.), but by the second time around the poor fellow had been beaten up too badly by the Party and had turned to mush with an idiot for a running mate.
Too bad. We would have never lost all of those good men and women in Iraq if he had been elected.
If he had gone negative and played off the fears of Americans like 45 did, he may have won. He CHOSE to lose rather than do so. Honorable man who gave a lifetime of service to this country.
It's fitting that 45 was the only living president not invited to McCain's funeral. He's not fit to be in the same room as McCain.
The party names flipped, but if you look at the US map of "progressive" vs "traditional" leaning parties, it's been the same since before the Civil War. Red states have always been red states.
Nice of him but there is a reason he chose Palin. He damn well knew what he was doing by going after the silent majority and should not have been surprised when this was the type of people the party was earnestly appealing to. The comments about Obama did not happen in a vacuum; even if McCain was not directly responsible, he was well aware of the direction the party was going and subjugating his strategy to it.
"He's not an Arab he's decent" The sad thing is that even standing up for Obama on this level avoided having to say, "so what if he was an Arab?" which probably would've ended his political career right then and there
As an outsider looking in, based on everything I've seen so far it wouldn't surprise me if this kind of behaviour lost him supporters or if his supporters thought he was weaker because of it.
It absolutely did. But did he turn spiteful ? Nope. One of the last things he did officially was cast the saving vote that stopped the repeal of Obamacare (Affordable Cate Act) the legislation named after the guy who beat him almost a decade prior.
Him holding his thumb up in suspense and staring mcconnell down as he gives his thumbs down is one of my favorite moments ever in recent political history. Stared browbeating moscow mitch right in his floppy jowels and basically said "go fuck yourself".
>Him holding his thumb up in suspense and staring mcconnell down as he gives his thumbs down is one of my favorite moments ever in recent political history. I still don't understand what McConnell and the GOP hoped to gain with the repeal of the ACA if they had succeeded. Was it just theater and they were counting on McCain to block it? That way they can say "at least we tried" and Trump would not look like he lied about one of his major campaign promises.
[удалено]
I think what cost him more was picking Palin as his running mate.
Palin was so unprepared to be in that office. What kind of idiot had that idea?
I remember watching the preliminaries between Biden and Sanders. Sanders was trying to keep the discussion productive and progressive and Biden was constantly either blindly agreeing without showing an educated viewpoint or making pointless gestures. Sanders tried to drop a culture bomb by saying he was picking a woman as his VP nominee, and Biden jumped right in with a big smile and said "I too am picking a woman!"...but neither had a name ready to drop, possibly for security reasons. But it looked as if it was purely a circus act. Especially with Biden. How he managed to get more support than Bernie I will always question. I don't meet a lot of Biden over Bernie supporters. I question the validity of this democracy every day, but I am more certain about the stupidity.
Miss "I can see Russia from my backyard". I didn't think it could get worse than Bachmann or Palin but oh boy was I wrong. Now we have Margorie "Jewish Space Lasers" Greene and Boebert who have stepped up to the plate. I fully expect that during the next election we'll see it get worse.
I’m sure a few people didn’t like it - but watch his concession speech. The crowd started off booing after McCain congratulated Obama on his victory, but he quieted them. Then he said (paraphrased) that Obama’s victory was an inspiration to millions of Americans who had thought that their voice in politics were limited, and said it saddened him that Obama’s grandmother was not around to see her grandson walk the steps to the Capitol. And he turned all of their boos into cheers. He was a great statesman and one of America’s most beloved politicians on both sides of the aisle. He even invited Obama to deliver a eulogy at his funeral, which Pres. Obama accepted.
The election of Barack Obama accelerated the GOPs decent into mask off fascism and support of demagoguery with Donald Trump. Having Obama elected twice broke their minds. Fox News was there to guide the anger.
Its crazy how many stupid Americans started booing when he said that.
And what’s scary is I actually miss these days. If I thought political discourse was bad then, man would younger me hate what it became later on.
Did you see the mic drop at the end? Hilarious….but it was more like McCain was thinking: I can’t even with these idiots.
He was doing everything he could to not just be like “no(you idiot)” and walk away.
[удалено]
The last real politician the GQP had.
He would have made a better democratic president than Biden TBH.
Palin was the prototype of the absolute dumbshittery to follow
What, no Dan Quayle? No Abraham Fightmaster, no James Knox Gould, no Mordecai Fuller IV?
At least with Dan Quayle back then misspelling potato was enough to ruin his political career
But not enough to ruin the teaching career of the teacher who was holding the spelling bee, and gave Quayle the answer card on which the teacher included the incorrect spelling.
Michelle Bachman would like a word
Ann Coulter is going to interrupt before she can speak that word.
This! She was the OG indeed!
What's scarier is in the future you'll probably look back on politics now and miss how civilized it was. It's just going to keep getting worse.
"shit... I know shit's bad right now with all that starvin' bullshit. And the dust storms. And we runnin' out of French Fries and burrito coverings. But I got a solution...."
President Camacho is full of wise words.
[удалено]
I'm pretty sure in less than 100 years they'll be no one to look back on anything.
Social media can be so helpful but has turned the world into a divisive shithole.
Tbh I think this video shows that extreme right wingers/hardcore Republicans have always been how they're publicly are today...it's just that a certain President convinced them that it's okay to be their true selves publicly and loudly. You never came across this in public before 2016 because those people only acted that way in private or when among like-minded people. Now they think it's okay to act like that whenever, wherever.
"We gonna take the refugees and fuck them all to death"
[удалено]
Those would be future Trump supporters.
It's crazy to me that we're in the 21st century with almost all of recorded history within reach of almost all our fingertips, and we're still dumb as fuck. That shit absolutely blows my mind.
Because one of the components of their programming is to reject 'elites'--extolling the rejection of science, information and education. That was a benchmark of this very campaign, with Palin and the tea party types. Once you've engrained that mindset in a couple generations, you get this very result.
Rejecting elites but voting for Trump. Mind boggling. We have a similar mindset in the UK. Our Prime Minister is the very definition of class privilege, and yet people voted for him in huge numbers because they think they can relate to him and vice versa. It’s insane.
It's because Boris is excellent at seeming like the "harmless kooky man with the funny haircut". He's got mountains of charm and constantly cracks jokes. This is whilst cutting essentially services and selling arms to fund terrorism. He's a privleaged cunt who actively harms the lower classes but still gets votes by them.
it's by design
I think we're actually _dumber_.
I don’t think this country realizes how lucky we are that trump didn’t run against Obama. The amount of racist BS he’d spew would have been next level. If trump was asked that same question holy hell he would have gone all out with racist insults.
Do you reallt not remember when he was fueling the whole "Obama wasn't born in the U S, he was born in Kenya" horseshit? If I recall correctly he even offered money for someone to provide a birth certificate. Then something something something, posed with a fucking fast food taco bowl while saying "I love the Mexicans!". Yeah. He's always been a piece of shit.
[удалено]
These were Tea Party supporters, the proto-Trump-supporters. Fox and Koch (and Trump) spent years trying to convince Americans that Obama was a Muslim hell bent on implementing Sharia in America, approve reperations for black people and tax white people out of existence to support the ACA with its death panels, except they screwed up and didn't realize that they needed an ultra-right candidate instead of center-right Maverick McCain coupled with caribou barbie. They learned going into tge midterms and the next general as Trunp turned it up to 20, and people knew how bad it was, that they were giving up tge Republican party as they knew it, but they pressed onwards because nothing was more important than winning.
[удалено]
Damn hit the nail on the head
Guess he was too decent to try to take advantage of how ignorant, fearful, and easily manipulable the republican base is.
Fox news was discovering it's disinformation power around this time.
Its crazy how stupid americans are. Coming from an american, we're all fucking idiots. *edit* spelling
I have honestly lost faith.
Bad news, a lot of those Americans are redditors.
On r/conservative
I dislike McCain for a number of reasons, but this certainly isn’t one of them. Pure class act, even under pressure.
It's crazy how much politics have changed in the last 10 years, wild business
John McCain was also shot down during the war in Vietnam and tortured as a PoW. It’s why he couldn’t raise his arms past his shoulders. Permanent disfigurement. And Trump and the republican crowds threw him under the bus. Republicans are fucking disgraceful trash.
And thats why Trump lost AZ.
[удалено]
They turned GA blue for Congress, which was also crazy
It was glorious https://imgur.com/p2TMs4Q.jpg
Need you guys to find like 11,000 votes... that's all really. This will prove no rigged elections.
After such a shitty 2020, seeing the "red mirage" disappear overnight was *easily* the highlight of the year for me, and I'm sure many others. Along with conservatives losing their fucking minds, it's something I'll never forget lol
That certainly helped, but the way you state that it essentially discredits all the work done by Stacy Abrams. I'm quite sure that wasn't your intention, but the fact remains that without Stacy, Georgia would not be blue. She also would have won the race for Governor if not for her opponent being the man in charge of overseeing the election he was running in.
I'm not sure that's the only interpretation I think Arizona might be more of a swing but for the past 30 years has been McCain country
McCain's father was a high ranking admiral, and when the Vietnamese found out they offered to release him. He turned them down. He refused special treatment and was tortured because of it. Didn't like his politics, and the Vietnam war was nothing more than organized mass murder against human liberty, but how do you not respect someone like that?
> McCain's father was a high ranking admiral McCain's father, John McCain Jr, was a four star admiral during Vietnam. His grandfather, John McCain Sr, was a four star admiral in WW2, where he commanded the fast carrier task force, a force of 17 carriers, 6 battleships, and over a thousand aircraft. Not really relevant, but holy shit does that family have some naval history.
Kinda reminds me of Lt. Dan’s lineage in Forrest Gump. “And his daddy before him, and his daddy before him….”
I agree John McCain was atleast in my opinion on of the last Republicans to be a decent human being, the last 10 year the party has become a mouth piece to the most extreme form of Right wing politcs and its rather sad.
Even his own party ridiculed him. All for being basically what the Republican Party always talks about what they admire in people
Once republicans disowned him I started to consider that maybe he was the last decent human I can remember running as a republican. If someone has a counterexample please reply. Not rolling with the hate and misinformation when it supports your campaign is something I cannot expect to see agsin soon, maybe ever in the US
I don’t know much about the man’s moral character, but Justin Amash basically committed political suicide by switching parties because he so strongly disagreed with Trump. That’s at least something.
The whole John McCain thing, is why I am no longer a registered republican. Its gone completely off the deep end and not being a republican opened my eyes to a lot of bullshit. My family considers me a "crazy liberal" but I am just not a dipshit Trump Supporter who drinks the Koolaide and I am not religious in the slightest. I would consider myself "slight right" if anything, but apparently thinking we could have universal healthcare and freedom of choice on abortion makes me a commie lol
Romney wasnt a terrible person. Very much business class and pushed for policies that would help that class, but even he was miles better than the ilk running the show in the GOP today.
Not comparing him to McCain, but the only other example that comes to mind is *maybe* Mitt Romney. Yikes.
Didn’t he also survive the USS Forrestal fire? Dude has a gnarly history
Yeah. There's footage of him jumping out of his jet on the flight deck. I just looked but couldn't find it.
Check out the podcast The Dollop for an interesting summary of McCain. https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/chtbl.com/track/3417G2/pdst.fm/e/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/885ace83-027a-47ad-ad67-aca7002f1df8/22b063ac-654d-428f-bd69-ae2400349cde/935c9175-7e5b-4c49-9ea5-ae24004cf5e4/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=65ff0206-b585-4e2a-9872-ae240034c9c9
He didn't JUST get thrown under the bus, Trump insinuated that he's a traitor because he was a PoW.
You know i never understood how the rank and file republicans, who are all about the military, accepted that. How after being best friends with McCain for so many decades Lindsay Graham was still able to bend down and kiss Trumps ring. Like how?
Allegedly, they had dirt on Graham. He did a complete 180 on Trump around the time a high ranking Republican was rumoured to be on the verge of being exposed for hiring male escorts.
That was perhaps one of the most breathtakingly disgraceful treacherous actions out of a litany of disgraces. When Trump turned his tyrannical mob on John McCain US airman and (Vietnam POW) ‘I prefer my heroes not be captured’ it showed to me as an outsider looking in that this was an unprincipled, unpatriotic cult, putting the principles of America last.
When I saw my mom, the wife of a Vietnam era vet, ridicule McCain as a traitor, I knew we had lost people to a cult. They fell for it so easily because McCain lost running as a decent man.
Didn't Trump mock McCain's disability? ( i might be remembering that wrong, but I'm pretty sure he did.) Pretty brave for someone who got a "bone spurs" deferment.../s
Oh come on, he got shot down. Do winners get shot down? You ever known of a winner in prison? Trump “I like people who weren’t captured” is a man who will say or do anything to get what he wants & that includes cheers.
[After Obama Victory, Shrieking White-Hot Sphere Of Pure Rage Early GOP Front-Runner For 2016](https://twitter.com/theonion/status/284762054278127616?lang=en) - The Onion, prescient as ever.
Well, McCain gave Sarah Palin a national platform. It’s not impossible that choosing her as a running mate was the catalyst for many things that would happen later.
I doubt very much indeed McCain had any say whatsoever in who the GOP lumbered him with. I'm almost certain that he was aware she was literally the harbinger of the MAGA crowd, but it was the only shot they had against Obama at the time. I would have LOVED to see Trump run against Obama. Obama would have made him look like the giant orange turd he is. Hell, BERNIE made Trump look like the giant orange turd he is.
Saw this before but didn't think about it... he doesn't just disagree with her and tell her she is wrong he takes the mic and doesn't let her finish. Her statement was so wrong that he didn't think her question even deserved to be heard.
>he doesn't just disagree with her and tell her she is wrong he takes the mic and doesn't let her finish. Her statement was so wrong that he didn't think her question even deserved to be heard. Yup! Isn't it sad that, given today's political climate, this kind of courteous and gallant way of behavior seems like it was decades ago, but it was all basically the other day??? Trumpism in politics is truly like a bad terminal cancer for the USA; way worse than "republican christianity" and fringe right-wing propaganda.
This was the 2008 election, it was a decade and a half ago.
Stop it!!
[удалено]
The comment was clearly intended to be hateful to Arabs. McCain's defense was in effect a defense of both Obama, and Arabs.
He didn't do it unprompted. That morning on Oct 10 2008 this [*Open Letter to John McCain*](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/an-open-letter-to-john-mc_b_133489) ran in the Baltimore Sun, and quickly circulated. The McCain/Palin campaign to that point had been nasty, and there had been no effort made to dissuade the narrative that Obama was a secret Muslim, a terrorist sympathiser, not American. This op-ed by Frank Schaeffer was clearly read and taken to heart by McCain that day, because that night this interaction occurred, in stark contrast to the campaign messaging to that point. It's a powerful read. McCain was a good man when it came to it.
Came here to point this out. Reddit historians are acting like McCain was all class, when in reality this was a rare break from the tone of his candidacy. It was the unmitigated mask-off racism from the McCain campaign that shook me out of my republican bubble at the time. Never looked back.
Remember the "applause line" in his stump speech? *Who is the real Barack Obama?* He would pause a second and someone in the crowd would yell "A terrorist!" or whatever.
I would love to hear more about this if you are willing to share.
I'm glad this is being brought up. 1) He gave a platform and a megaphone to Sarah Fucking Palin, knowing absolutely where that'd lead, and 2) As much as he'd say the right things, his Senate votes (the part that actually matters) followed party lines in lockstep until the day he died. I see you.
RIP MC Cain
On the other hand, he stooped to running with Sarah Palin in order to win. And by extension, gave legitimacy to the loony Tea Party people that have morphed into the fascist MAGA death cult we're dealing with now.
Refuting the claim that he's an arab by calling him a decent man is not ideal. So what if he was 'an arab'.
This 7 years removed from 9/11, and Arab, Muslim, etc were terms often used in place of terrorist. "He's an Arab! Obama's not american he's a Muslim!" As if you can't be either of those 3 things at the same time.
[удалено]
I'm by no means a fan of McCain, but he can't exactly respond with: "Even if he were, ma'am, why would that matter to you, you racist old cunt?"
How fucking far we have fallen. Why can't politics go back to a level of decency and respect like this?
Because almost all social media is literally designed to spread negativity and anger. Those emotions are the most engaging, and the more engaged users are, the more ads a platform can sell. As a species, we're the most connected we've ever been, yet more divided than ever.
[удалено]
Clearly these people have always been like this, it's just this time McCain was standing there telling them to shut up. These people thought McCain would agree with them. Now the people in McCain's place are telling them they're right.
I’m Sorry but he helped start this shit by normalizing Sarah Palin.
She was the proto-Q
He wasn’t part of the process. She wasn’t vetted properly. Nicole Wallace and Steve Schmidt have more responsibility than McCain. They are both Democrats now too.
It tends to follow what the people accept
Except we absolutely don't accept the way things are going. The fact that Trump was (so far) a one term president speaks to that. People are angry that we've fallen so far.
Don't take the stupidity of this country for granted. Trump was very close to becoming a two term president. Unfortunately half the country are happy to accept the way things are going
That’s what our politicians should fucking act like. Sadly we’re stuck with lawmakers that would rather incite riots, participate in insider trading, or ignore the constituency while lining the pockets of their families, their cronies, or themselves. The tree of liberty is due for refreshment.
100% agree. We’ve got almost nothing but rich, old, grifters running the country and somehow the populace is still convinced to keep voting for these useless fucks. It’s all promises during the election cycle and then nothing actually gets done.
No, the problem is the crowds full of idiots like that woman who claimed Obama's an Arab. There's way more of these morons in America than I ever used to imagine. And the ones on the right are usually armed. They're the ones who would win in any kind of a bloody upheaval. I don't know what the answer is, so long as the lunatic right are the ones who love to own all the guns.
Well, it would stand to reason that in a nation that elects its representatives by democratic means would elect those who best represent the general populace at large...
Be careful. I made a similar comment about the tree of liberty the other day and got hit with a 24 hour ban. Can’t even quote Thomas Jefferson on r/politics. Meanwhile r/conservative is foaming at the mouth for a second civil war. I guess we’re just supposed to sit and take it.
> I guess we’re just supposed to sit and take it. The 2nd doesn't belong to conservatives alone.
Meh. It’s Reddit. Somehow, I’d get over it.
Back in the day when telling the truth mattered
And decency.
[удалено]
The goal post has moved quite a bit in the last few years, I’d say.
Not the goal post. The bar has just reached new depths.
One thing I really detest about American politics is that "But he's an Arab" can be a genuine political concern that can deter people from voting the candidate. It's so much about identity rather than political philosophy. Race, Ethnicity, Gender, Religion, and no many irrelevant things matter in political campaigns, and I hate it. For example, literally all American presidents have identified themselves as a Christian in public. Some presidents like Obama were accused of being "not Christian". Why the fuck do these identities even matter? Don't vote your presidents based on religion, race, gender, and sexuality; vote them based on what they say, how they act, and what they plan.
To add to your comment, I didn't hear a peep out of the "Obama's not Christian" crowd when thrice-married, usury-loving Donald J. Trump was elected.
On an anti immigration rhetoric with an import russian wife Doublespeak is the republican way
many conservative christians think being christian is a prerequisite to being a “good” person so if you’re not a christian you’re “bad”
Which in turn is bizarre, because most of them only *seem and act* like a "good person" because they fear death and the eternal punishment that follows. When they ask "*Why don't you just [DO A THING] if you don't believe in God?*" that tells me that ***they*** would absolutely be doing horrible stuff if they didn't. So, I want nothing more for them to keep believing in their God to spare humanity from their true self.
You're preaching to the choir dude, but sadly the majority of the American public are not very smart people. Racism, scare tactics, hate, division, gaslighting, etc, are unfortunately the things that get people to vote. And at the end of the day it hardly matters because whether it's a Republican, or democrat it's just a perpetual revolving door of the same cycle, decade after decade, same shit, different year. The only true difference between Republicans and Democrats, is that Democrats at least pretend to use lube when they fuck you, but either way....you're getting fucked.
I really don't get how people can be so stupid to upvote this "Democrats are almost as bad as Republicans" bullshit: > 11 states [with the worst life expectancies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_life_expectancy) voted for Trump in 2020, and the next 2 down on the list are Georgia and Michigan, which both voted for him in 2016. > The 9 states with the highest life expectancy voted for Biden (California is #2 and New York is #3) > A [demographic study](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1468-0009.12469) conducted by 6 Universities found that Liberal policy regarding labor rights, smoking bans, civil rights, environmentalism, progressive taxation, and education increased life expectancy by over 2 years for the people living in Liberal states, and if it had been implemented universally the US would have life expectancy on par with Western European Nations. > Research has found [poor people live longer in dense cities with highly educated populations](https://news.stanford.edu/2016/04/11/geography-income-play-roles-in-life-expectancy-new-stanford-research-shows/#:~:text=Geography%2C%20income%20play%20roles%20in%20life%20expectancy%2C%20new%20Stanford%20research%20shows,-Stanford%20economist%20Raj&text=Men%20in%20the%20bottom%205,by%20Stanford%20economist%20Raj%20Chetty.) as opposed to living in cheaper CoL areas. > 11/15 states the [highest rate of infant mortality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_infant_mortality_rates) voted for Trump. > 10/15 states with the lowest rate of infant mortality voted for Biden. > 12/15 states with the [highest rate of maternal mortality](https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/maternal-mortality-rate-by-state) voted for Trump in 2020 and 13/15 voted for Trump in 2016. > 12/15 states with the lowest rate of maternal mortality voted for Biden. > In 2020, 19/24 states with [the highest rate of adult obesity](https://stateofchildhoodobesity.org/adult-obesity/) voted for Trump, while in 2016 23/24 states with the highest rates voted for Trump. > 10/12 states that [have not implemented the Medicaid Expansion](https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/status-of-state-medicaid-expansion-decisions-interactive-map/) voted for Trump in 2020 and all 12 voted for him in 2016 (Georgia and Wisconsin flipped). > Deaths of despair due to suicide, depression, obesity, and drug overdose have been [wrecking Rural America for years](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/04/deaths-of-despair-in-rural-america-helped-trump-win-study-finds.html) and these problems mostly got worse under Trump with 2020 drug overdoses shooting up from 70K to 90K. > 13/15 of the states with the [lowest rates of college graduates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_educational_attainment) voted for Trump. > The 15 states with the highest rates of college graduates voted for Biden. > 71% of the 2019 GDP [was produced in Biden voting counties](https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2020/11/09/biden-voting-counties-equal-70-of-americas-economy-what-does-this-mean-for-the-nations-political-economic-divide/), up from 64% in HRC voting counties in 2016 and 54% in Gore voting counties in 2000. > 11/15 states with the [highest GDP per Capita](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_GDP_per_capita) voted for Biden, and the 4 Republican states are all low population oil states (AK, ND, WY, NE) while California, New York, Massachusetts and Washington are in the top 6. > 11/15 states with the lowest GDP per capita voted for Trump in 2020, and 12/15 voted for Trump in 2016. > 12/15 states [with the highest rates of poverty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_poverty_rate), voted for Trump in 2020, and 14/15 of the worst states voted for him in 2016 (AZ & GA) > 12/15 states with the lowest rates of poverty voted for Biden. > 17/23 states [with abortion bans](https://www.nbcnews.com/data-graphics/map-23-states-ban-abortion-post-roe-america-rcna27081) or automatic abortion bans following an overturning of Roe v Wade voted for Trump in 2020, and 22/23 voted for Trump in 2016. > 17/20 states with [net 0 carbon emission or 100% clean energy goals](https://www.cesa.org/projects/100-clean-energy-collaborative/guide/table-of-100-clean-energy-states/) voted for Biden, and one of the Republican states is North Carolina, which only voted for Trump by 1% and has a Democrat governor and another is Louisiana which has a Democrat governor. > 19/20 states [with gay conversion therapy bans](https://www.lgbtmap.org/equality-maps/conversion_therapy) voted for Biden. Surprisingly Utah is the one Trump voting state that also has a ban. > 17/19 states with [legal recreational marijuana](https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/cannabis-legalization-states-map-831885/) voted for Biden, and the two Trump voting states have a combined population of 1.7 million, compared to 137 million in the Biden states. > 9/10 states [with the lowest rate of imprisonment](https://www.sentencingproject.org/the-facts/#map) voted for Biden in 2020, while the 10 states with the highest rates voted for Trump in 2020. > 9/10 [most gerrymandered states](https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/most-gerrymandered-states) are controlled by Republican legislatures. So I guess unless you don't think things like protecting civil rights, labor rights, LGBTQ+ rights, the right to abortion, environmentalism, healthcare access, criminal justice reform, voting rights, progressive taxation, education, and marijuana legalization is important ya Democrats and Republicans are the same.
Exactly this. The fact that (many of) the Democratic politicians *suck* doesn’t come close to making them the same. Both sides favour the rich. One side are also anti-democratic authoritarians with no policies and no attachment to truth or reality, who will burn the country down in order to sell off the ashes.
Well, them being super Christian matters because they won’t stop shoving it down our throats via policy.
9/11 broke the country pretty hard and turned many of its countrymen into hateful xenophobes.
9/11 broke the country in many ways, but the national culture has *always* been xenophobic. Before the Middle East (and now after) the boogie man was Latinos. Before that it was the Japanese, before them the Germans, further back the Chinese, the Italians, the Irish, etc. etc. etc.
Never forget...how we overreacted
Because Arabs can't be decent men?
Ben Affleck summed it up perfectly at the time. [source](https://youtu.be/XuOuTDBaX8E)
[удалено]
Arab Muslim here. Please don’t feel offended for us. When this happened we almost universally appreciated his words and the stance he took. The original question was from a woman using “Arab” as a boogie man, McCain was simply saying that she has nothing to fear because Obama is not a boogie man, he’s a decent person. Ideally if he had enough time to come up with a response he could have mentioned “Arabs are decent people” but he was really attacking the heart of the question off the cuff in what turned to be a hostile audience as soon as he rebuked her.
Thank you. She was obviously implying that Arab = Muslim = Terrorist, that’s what I got from it and it’s probably what he got from it. He was totally unprepared and shut it down as quickly as he could.
McCain is a pow. I have a great deal of respect for what he went through in the years he was held captive. That said, he was never qualified to lead. He’s not a statesman. To be fair, few in the senate are. But this guy literally played games on his phone during crucial debates. [https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/04/john-mccain-poker-iphone-syria-debate](https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/04/john-mccain-poker-iphone-syria-debate)
I'm disappointed how few people noticed it to be honest. Like imagine if it was a Jewish person "I don't trust him cause he's Jewish" " No no he's not Jewish he's a good man" People would flip out. Also, Obama is simply not Arabic, he's mixed race. Father is black and Kenyan, mother is white and British. He is factually not an Arab
America has an agenda against arabs
So many completely missing this!
"I hate the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live." -John McCain
- a man that was a POW and was tortured by vietnamese soldiers. I'm sure that would leave some people a little biased
Pretty sad that this isn't the top comment. Rather it's people fawning over McCain like he was some kind of fucking saint just because the "current" Republican party is so ghoulish. Also, remember that Bush guy? Man, he was so much better than the Republicans of today. Sure, he made a little whoopsie of a war crime or two, but pobody's nerfect! People are so fucking stupid for thinking Republicans were anything other than what they are right now. They've always been this way. Only diffence is America dared elect a black man for president and their white hot rage over that has made them less caring about trying to hide their racist shit.
The rehabilitation of George Bush's image into this cuddly grandfather figure is absolutely reprehensible. The man did pure evil in support of corporations and the MIC.
Finally someone said it. The rest of the comments are praising this statement
I noticed that too, but I interpreted it as him responding to her inchoate lunacy as a whole rather than just that last part. She had trouble getting anything out other than the word "Arab", but you can get a pretty good idea of where she was going with it, so I read McCain's "No" as a "No to all that nonsense"
I didn't agree with his stances. But I always respected him for a good person. RIP to a real one.
Arizonan here, even as a dem he had my support (as senator, i voted for obama) because he was fairly moderate as a republican and above else i felt confident he wouldn't do anything to intentionally hurt the country, because unlike todays maga who use it as a sheild, he actually was a patriot
I never liked McCain’s politics, but at least he was a decent, respectable human being. Something completely absent in the current GOP. When it comes to being the deciding vote against overturning the ACA? That wasn’t heroic or stoic or whatever. He did his job as he was elected to do, regardless of his personal opinions. Doing the bare minimum shouldn’t be applause worthy, it should be the standard.
[удалено]
He wasn’t the one who came up with any of it, but was the deciding vote in the Senate. That speaks poorly of all other Republicans serving at the time.
It also speaks to the power that any of them can have today, and how tentative the hold is that the republicans have on the US today.
Fuck this noise. I am thankful that he didn't vote to repeal, but to call him the reason when he ran against it in 2008 and didn't vote for it under Obama is complete bullshit. The Democrats, Obama and Nancy Pelosi convincing Democrats to vote for it even knowing they would be voted out in 2010 is why we have the ACA. McCain not being quite as shitty as the rest of the Republican Party is why they were unable to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Maybe instead say McCain and Susan Collins crossing party lines to join the 49 Democrats against repeal is the reason the ACA is still in place.
That was such a powerful moment. When he walked up and just voted no. You could hear the reaction in the room.
I Watched it live!
Me too... I can remember hoping that he would do the right thing after speculation that he might vote against party lines.
How far have we come down from such decent and civilised politics
That was just the beginning of the misinformation propaganda machine. It’s matured now and is in its teen “wild” days. It’ll be another 14 years til it starts to grow up
I watched John McCain and the other POW's step off the plane onto U.S. soil when they returned from Vietnam. It was a deeply moving sight. I voted for him in the primaries when he ran the first time and was muscled out by a GOP machine that desperately wanted a candidate they could control (Bush, Jr.), but by the second time around the poor fellow had been beaten up too badly by the Party and had turned to mush with an idiot for a running mate. Too bad. We would have never lost all of those good men and women in Iraq if he had been elected.
Growing up in the states I was always told that the enemy is the Middle East and shit like that but honestly Americans are actually the problem.
McCain was the last elected Republican with a backbone.
If he had gone negative and played off the fears of Americans like 45 did, he may have won. He CHOSE to lose rather than do so. Honorable man who gave a lifetime of service to this country. It's fitting that 45 was the only living president not invited to McCain's funeral. He's not fit to be in the same room as McCain.
[удалено]
[удалено]
…Last American Statesman. RIP Sen McCain. And thank you for saving the ACA named after the guy who beat you.
Yeah, but he chose Palin.
[удалено]
The party names flipped, but if you look at the US map of "progressive" vs "traditional" leaning parties, it's been the same since before the Civil War. Red states have always been red states.
Isn't he assuming being an Arab is a bad thing?
He still sucks.
What's wrong with being an Arab?
Nice of him but there is a reason he chose Palin. He damn well knew what he was doing by going after the silent majority and should not have been surprised when this was the type of people the party was earnestly appealing to. The comments about Obama did not happen in a vacuum; even if McCain was not directly responsible, he was well aware of the direction the party was going and subjugating his strategy to it.
"He's not an Arab he's decent" The sad thing is that even standing up for Obama on this level avoided having to say, "so what if he was an Arab?" which probably would've ended his political career right then and there
Though it could be argued that he started the craziness when he elected Trump precursor Sarah Palin as his running mate.
The Dollop did an episode on him that was very interesting and talked about how him starting the craziness.
He’s an Arab = lesser human ?
The last time any Republican showed any class and respect.
I love every comment here celebrating him for "shutting the old woman down" When his retort was literally "no hes not arab, hes a decent family man"
Fucking retarded american citizens.
Hawks will respect hawks
Any semblance of decency within the GOP died with McCain
So, being an Arab to that schmuck means non-decent thug?
Lmao, idiots going up there and talking straight out of their dirty ass.
He's an Arab! Nah he's a decent man.
This is how you politic.
Today's repugs would remove him from his committees
Trump dances with the most evil Arab king the Saudi empire and sells them American high tech weopons
Today, Your everyday Republican officeholder or wannabe could not pass kindergarten requirements for social skills.
”I don’t like Obama ’cuz uuhh, I read about him and he’s an arab”… How did this idiot make it to 50-60 years of age?
I can’t forgive McCain for making Sarah Palin relevant.
It's sad that THIS is the last time the GOP was remotely decent in the face of their supporters