Greetings,
John McCain, United States Senator from Arizona since 1987, has died. McCain was loved and respected by his friends, and if not loved, at least grudgingly respected by his enemies. I’m not going to add more adulation or snipe at differences, but I will say John McCain was something all-too-rare today: a statesman that vigorously and respectfully advocated for the values he believed in. We won’t see his like again, and I’ll miss him. But McCain may have performed one last service in his death by giving our President one more platform to needlessly embarrass himself, and this time in a way that even his most deluded supporters may have a hard time shrugging off…
“Don’t speak ill of the dead” is more than just sage advice, it almost has the force of a superstition. Respect for the dead, in various guises, especially for those we know, is fundamentally human. We learn in childhood that smearing the memory of the dead only hurts the living. Even if Grandma was a bigot, if Uncle Jared was rumored to be a little “weird”, if Aunt Agatha drank away her days or cousin Fred died in prison, we still don’t dwell on those very real shortcomings at their funerals. It’s not that we ignore them but we try to find good points to remember instead. We don’t do it for the sake of the dead but for the sake of the living. No matter how abhorrent the dead person was, those they left behind are hurting and need comfort. We do it because one day we’ll be the subject of discussion ourselves, and we care what our own families will think about what will be said.
America has one president, but many other societies let one person handle the day-to-day business of governing while another represents the country in state dinners and baby kissing. Ceremonial duties can sound less important than governmental duties but they aren’t. Humans like their individuality but in times of trauma we tend to look to leaders to unite, comfort, or inspire us. Think Obama after Sandy Hook, Bush after 9/11, Reagan after Challenger, FDR after Pearl Harbor. Obama rightly described a President as America’s “mourner in chief”, and there are examples of presidents both rising to that standard and falling desperately short. Trump’s proven himself abjectly incompetent on the governmental side of things, but John McCain’s death presented another opportunity to succeed on the ceremonial side.
Of course, he failed miserably. Donald Trump’s response to John McCain’s death has mystified and infuriated both supporters and detractors for very different and very good reasons. Perhaps Never-Trumpers didn’t expect any earnest human emotion or politeness, but even they expected insipid good wishes and were taken aback by the pettiness of Trump’s response. The Always-Trumpers probably didn’t expect soaring rhetoric either, but like the rest of America they’re feeling an almost personal loss and deserve some small acknowledgement of that loss from their leader. It hasn’t come. When the President lies about complex issues of law, politics, or government, well who’s to say he’s wrong? Most people don’t have the backgrounds to make truly informed evaluations on those subjects. Trump can bash Mueller, Comey, and the rest fairly easily because America doesn’t know them well enough to know if he’s lying. But John McCain is different. McCain’s been an American institution for decades, and rightly or wrongly we all feel we know him. When Trump slights him of the respect he’s so richly earned, we all know better. Even if the Always-Trumpers don’t explicitly put it into those words themselves, the reality will tickle in the back of their minds… Trump is not like us somehow. Disrespecting McCain is hardly Trump’s worst sin, but it might be the one that sticks.
John McCain is now being accorded the respect he’s earned throughout his life. He didn’t have to be perfect to deserve that respect, and none of us do. No one is a hypocrite for praising a flawed human being; in fact, he’s being praised for persevering and rising above his flaws. But one day Donald Trump will pass and “don’t speak ill of the dead” will be tested. Perhaps the Mourner-in-Chief at the time will choose to unify us all in a National Moment of Silence. Trump supporters will be able to tearfully ignore all the horrific abuses of The Don as they struggle to dwell on imagined successes. The rest of us can stand beside them, offer comfort, and take refuge in more sage advice… “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”
Make a great day,
