John McCain death jokes are our new normal
(CNN) On Thursday morning, a White House aide named Kelly Sadler joked about Sen. John McCain's opposition to CIA nominee Gina Haspel by noting that "he's dying anyway."
It was the latest in a series of increasingly nasty comments about McCain: Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, called it "ridiculous" that McCain wasn't planning to invite President Donald Trump to his funeral while a retired general on Fox News on Thursday referred to a debunked conspiracy theory that McCain had informed on his comrades while a prisoner of war during Vietnam.
There's no disputing the fact that McCain has terminal brain cancer and that he is very unlikely to be around at this time next year. It's also indisputable that McCain is a genuine American hero -- who fought and suffered for his country in the theater of war and had decided the better part of the last four decades of his life to public service as a House member, a senator and a two-time presidential candidate.
That even some part of his final days -- or weeks or months -- is consumed by this sort of garbage is maddening. And depressing. And made even more so by the fact that this is, in fact, the new normal.
How did we get here? Where anyone who disagrees with us on anything is evil, other and an object for ridicule? Where the phrase "reasonable people can disagree" has lost all meaning? Where someone can feel comfortable making a death joke about a man battling brain cancer?
Lots of people would like to lay the blame -- all of it -- at the feet of Trump. The reality is more complex. Our own self-sorting tendencies -- we rarely live around anyone anymore who doesn't see the world generally as we do -- played a role. The expansion of ideological media where you can only watch, read and listen to people who validate you and your views played a role. The rise of outside political groups who made a business out of purifying the two parties of any so-called moderates played a role. The partisan redistricting processes around the country, which jammed us into congressional seats prioritized by political party played a role.
That said, there is no question that Trump -- the campaign he ran in 2016 and the way he has acted in the White House since winning -- has been the prime catalyst for this degradation in our ability to simply treat people with whom we disagree with respect.
There was already lots of gasoline on the ground. Trump lit the match and dropped it.
Trump's campaign was based on a simple idea: Politicians are too political. They're afraid of their own shadows. They won't say it like it is because they live in fear of the political correctness police coming to knock on their door.
He cast himself as the antidote to all of that -- someone who would say what everyone was thinking. He was a status quo shaker, the worst nightmare for the staid and ineffective political establishment.
That idea, in and of itself, is powerful.
The problem was -- and is -- that Trump conflated insults and bullying with shaking things up. So, questioning McCain's war credentials -- "He's not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren't captured." -- as Trump did in July 2015, at the start of his presidential campaign, was somehow treated by Trump and those who supported him as speaking truth to power.
Ditto his attacks on Carly Fiorina's looks. His attempts to raise the heritage of Judge Gonzalo Curiel. His suggestion that Khizr Khan, the father of a solider fighting in Iraq, had been put up to his speech at the Democratic National Convention by partisans out to get him. His suggestion, as President, that "both sides" were to blame for the white nationalist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. His repeated bullying of his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, and his comments about the alleged plastic surgery of "Morning Joe" anchor Mika Brzezinski .
On and on the list goes. And it all adds up to one thing: Trump weaponized nastiness and bullying. He turned it into a political art form. He gave cover for all of those people with uninformed views -- on race, ethnicity and everything else -- to emerge from the shadows and speak out.
And, if you didn't laugh or "get the joke" -- even though Trump was often not joking in these circumstances -- you were part of the problem. Just another defender of a status quo that rewarded elites and left out the little guy. Just another person who didn't get it.
The issue with all of this is that it bastardized a very legitimate issue -- the growing income (and everything else) gap between the rich and the poor -- for Trump's own political purposes. He drove the divide for political reasons and, in his language, made it totally OK to say whatever you wanted about people you disagreed with because they had been out to get you for years. This was just payback. And man did they deserve it.
Nuance went out the window. Speaking hard truths that the country needed to hear -- as McCain has done throughout his career -- became indistinguishable from calling Sen. Ted Cruz's wife ugly or suggesting that we need to ban Muslims from entering the country. Political incorrectness became a crutch to justify racist and xenophobic views.
And in the middle of it all was Trump. When he wasn't engaging in these behaviors, he was refusing to condemn them -- an example of his abdication of the idea of the President as moral leader. Who am I to say who is right and who is wrong in the Charlottesville violence, Trump asked. Who am I to judge who is telling the truth -- Roy Moore or the multiple women who said he had pursued relationships with them when they were teenagers?
That view has trickled down. When CNN's Chris Cuomo asked State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert on Friday to comment on the "joke" about McCain's death, Nauert responded: "I'm not familiar with what you're familiar with." Really? Nauert hadn't heard about the story? I find that very, very hard to believe.
That collective shrug from the President of the United States and his allies coupled with the extant factors of our internal divisions and the sort of campaign he ran in 2016 created the toxic stew from which comments like the one Thursday by Sadler grow.
No one is standing up and saying "We can't treat people like this." And sadly, that vacuum in moral leadership means that the better angels of our nature are being drowned out by our demons.
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What about all the nasty jokes about the Congressman that got shot at the baseball game by a deranged progressive?
Oiy. "Well they did it too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Give it a rest. You cannot excuse this by playing 'whataboutism'.
And for the record? I was as sickened by that as I am by this. Ok? Thanks.
There is no way to verify that she even said it. Can you provide the tape or video. It sounds like yet another made up left wing "scandal"
Her apology a few days later is the proof that she said it. If she had not said it, her response would have been "I will not apologize for something I never said." not "I'm sorry for what I said."
Yes, give it a rest. Like the left and Democrats give two shits about McCain. The way he was demonized when he was running for President. Being labeled a traitor to the country while being a POW. Also either that he was a horrible pilot; or got shot down on purpose. Along with question his mental faculties; and physical well being.
The only reason to take up his flag now is his opposition to Trump.
I once respected McCain- that is until he sold out all of his values to win the Republican nomination; allowed the Establishment to select his running mate; and then half assed his campaign. He proved he was a good Establishment lackey; and was rewarded by being allowed to keep his seat in Congress.
It seems to me you have more to complain about with McCain than anyone on the Left or, the Democrats. I have disagreed with much of what McCain has said or, done politically but, I still have respect for him and, what he has done for this country. McCain has served with distinction in Congress and, in the military and, now that he is vulnerable because of his illness a vulture administration has decided that it wants to take advantage and, say despicable things about him when it is hard for him to fight back. Anything that I have ever said about him was at a time when he could fight back, if he had wished to, if he had felt I was important enough to fight against but, I know that he wouldn't have found that was needed since I wasn't in the same position as a member of the administration or, a member of Congress.
If you want to say something against a man when he is down, the way McCain is right now then you have got to be one sick MFer and, everyone in the Trump Administration is just that, sick MFer's.
Were you cheering when McCain picked Palin to be his running mate? Were you supportive of his pro war agenda and criticism of Obamas foreign policy?
If McCain were calling Trump a great president now the left would be singing a very different tune.
You obviously don't read the comments that well or, you have a reading comprehension problem, either way you missed the part were I said I didn't agree with McCain much politically but, that I respected him for what he has done in serving this country.
Of course they would.
John McCain says that he regrets picking 1/2 term govenor Caribou Barbie as his running mate.
McCain should've picked Lieberman, if that was his preference. But that didn't stop the left at the time from tearing him down.
McCain's own mistakes at the time, in addition to the constant disaster that was Palin was his downfall. The Friday Letterman appearance that didn't happen was a quick synopsis of his campaign.
You mean other than the fact that che called McCain's daughter to apologize?
Joe Lieberman, I remember him well. "A piece of work." A man with too many faces.
Senator McCain did want Joe L., for his V.P. choice, but knew the country was conflicted about good ole Joe! Mr. Lieberman was a confusion religiously too! Observant Jew, with a tinge of orthodoxy—forgive me if I do not express this in the right parlance, I mean no offense to Joe or anybody else. The question for McCain was should he die in office, would he, the republican party, the nation as a whole, be content (accepting) to have a Jewish V.P. installed as President, nevertheless.
I remember that discussion well on the networks!
? When? I didn't see anything but sympathy for Congressman Scalise as well as shame heaped upon the violent extremist who committed such a crime.
I remember that too, just as I remember the discussions about JFK being Catholic. What happened back then was just proof of the quiet "Gentleman's Agreement" latent anti-Semitism in the USA.
I have said many times over the years, I don''t like his politics, but no doubt he IS an American hero and a damn good man. You must be thinking of trump, who slams vets and gold star families all the time.
Hi Buzz of the Orient! I hear you 'loud and clear.' It has always been a presidential office-holder 'concern' (angst) of this collective of ours! It is real and existing, nevertheless.
Yet, somehow, a 'wild-ass' of a man like Donald Trump has succeeded in becoming our national Luminary. I am not bad-mouthing Donald right now. He takes pride in being a unique contrarian.
Sadly, this is true. We are no longer shocked by the lack of decorum and clas in the WH. We just shrug our shoulders and say, "Meh, big deal, just another day for trump and his staff of morons, liars and criminals".
I don't agree with most of Sen. McCain's politics. But he is a good family man, a war hero and an all around great American. To say something like, "he is dying anyway", is sickening. I don't care if it was said in private, or if it was, "just a joke"...there is no excuse for this. Then to top it off, the WH makes no apology for it? How far down must trump drag the right wing down before they say, "enough is enough"? Trump didn't even serve in the military yet he attacks vets and now refuses to issue an apology for one of his staff making a sickening comment about a dying American War Hero? Wow.......
The woman apologized - a couple days after it happened. The crudeness and invective in the White House is not a glitch, it is a feature. Trump believes he is popular BECAUSE he is an asshole, and seeing some of his followers he is probably right.
Why should Trump apologize for every stupid remark made by people around him? Obama never apologized for anything that he, his staff, or his supporters said or did. Deleted, Skirting, sweeeping generalizations. {SP}
He is their boss, he is responsible for those he employs. The leader is ultimately responsible for what those under him do.
Take Starbucks for example? The two Black kids that were arrested? The CEO took responsibility, issued an apology and changed policy to correct the problem. Why would asking trump to do the same thing be such a stretch?
Of course not, but certainly the outrageously shameful ones. He clearly has the same sentiments as the staffer who made the statement.
Clearly?? How do you come with a ridiculous statement like that?
He didn't say anything did he ?
He could have at least condoned the remark publicly.
And, to top it off Sander's comes out in a presser and, says that she is upset about it leaking out, she is more upset about the leak than what was said by Sadler, Sadler should have been fired as soon as it was said and, Sander's should have issued an apology from the White House.
Yep, exactly... Hmmm.... "Sad Sick Slick Sarah..." Yea, that works.
We need to stop looking to this President and his Administration to set the tone of civility and honor.
This is solely the fault of President Trump supporters. They encourage and allow this type of discord. How this makes America great is beyond my comprehension.
Well, they learned everything they know from the Democrats and their supporters.
I'm not interested in your alternative facts. You are in denial. This is a perfect example of why the country has lost it's principals. For that I can only conjure up one response.....Confeve
Covfefe.
Thank you - It's fairly new to the English language and so it's easily misspelled.
At least Trump invented a word!
Sarah Palin did too, 'refudiate.'
BULLSHIT
Apparently they skipped the day covering, "how to run a country".
There is not a shred of decency in this White House.
Her mistake.....you can think it, but don't say it. It is her place to apologize....not Pres Trump's.
It is her place to apologize but, now the Trump Administration owes an apology to the McCain family as well, for not dealing with this properly as soon as it happened, Sadler should have been fired or, at the least reprimanded for her comment and, Sander's should have acknowledged the comment in her press briefing after it happened instead of saying she was more worried about the leak of it instead of the comment itself. This show's a lack of interest in decency in this White House.
My dear Magnoliaave, how are you these days? Best of Mother's Day to you!
President Trump is "the buck stops here." The moment the media got this unfortunate set of words on a pad and on-air, the instant it flowed up to the 'brain' in the White House, aka: Donald Trump, it demanded an official White House tamp down. There was no other hand-off.
Tell me when somebody who works for Teump holds up a fake bloody head. Or says they want to blow up the White House. This is just another fake liberal outrage.
Not to mention the constant "jokes" about Sarah Sanders. Liberals sure do have a problem with women...at least the liberal "males", anyway.
Does Sarah Sanders need a safe place from being roasted by a 2nd rate comedienne for her lies at the daily press briefing?
What lies? Be specific with credible sources.
Thanks.
Ask and you shall receive,
And that is how you stop a rightist....post facts.
Consplaining what women have problems with is offensive, when one doesn't know bubkis about women. Some of us don't like lying complicit bitches that protect arrogant misogynist arseholes.
Indeed. Facts are an anathema to the rabid righties here on NT. Even with irrefutable proof, they will still deny it and call it 'fake news' and progressive lies in order to convince themselves that it is not true. It really is comical to watch them go through all the verbal antics to try to disprove and deny even the easy to prove facts.
Well that is 3 and 2 of the 3 are subjective. The only one I see polit"ifact" getting right is the first one.
The second one is simply an opinion based on a statement. If Trump really did call for violence, liberals sure did heed the call.
The third one is a spin on words. Sanders stated that other outlets reported on the accusation of wiretapping of the Trump campaign. Politi"fact" tries to spin it that no outlet provided proof of wiretapping.
So, to summarize....Ooooooohhhhhh, you got her in one "lie".
Got anything else?
What facts? Her post has been debunked..
This is not the WWE! When private citizens cross the decency line it falls to the community to check itself; when government which has power over our lives crosses the decency line, that which we teach children to tow by the way, we implicitly encourage a "falls counts anywhere" mentality. Magnified and multiplied 'falls' can get pretty crude, vulgar, and down-right violent across fifty states very fast!
People of good stock simply do not death-wish others. It is information we get at home: "Home training."
Tell me when somebody who works for Teump holds up a fake bloody head.
What else do you want ?!?!?!?
Should I say "thank you" or "stop" ?
Okay, didn't know if you were being snide or not.
Lol, what's "np" ?
Non-PC!!!!
Thread removed no value.
All of this bantering is so tiring.
"Death jokes are the new normal." No, they are not.
America has had many different types of presidents in our history. We as a people have survived them all. The only question that should be asked at this point. After the presidency of Donald J. Trump---------------------------------------------?