Your friend Jim George thinks you'd be a great addition to Ricochet, so we'd like to offer you a special deal: You can become a member for no initial charge for one month!
Ricochet is a community of like-minded people who enjoy writing about and discussing politics (usually of the center-right nature), culture, sports, history, and just about every other topic under the sun in a fully moderated environment. We’re so sure you’ll like Ricochet, we’ll let you join and get your first month for free. Kick the tires: read the always eclectic member feed, write some posts, join discussions, participate in a live chat or two, and listen to a few of our over 50 (free) podcasts on every conceivable topic, hosted by some of the biggest names on the right, for 30 days on us. We’re confident you’re gonna love it.
Look up “The Swamp” facebook documentary. The federalist had an article on it.
McCain does elicit a cult of personality. The victim/hero of the Republican Party. The baby of the family that gets away with everything. It’s difficult to fathom how far his defenders will go on his behalf.
Imagine if we could get 20% of the Bolsheviks to break party discipline and vote with Republicans….
Depends. How far back can we go?
Coolidge only counts if you roll back the New Deal first.
“Democrats would have no choice but to pass a balanced budget amendment and reform entitlements and the Tea Party Hobbits could return to Middle Earth.” — John McCain 2011
(“I’d rather be a hobbit than a troll.” — Rand Paul)
https://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/27/john-mccain-vs-the-tea-party/
“Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain’s team is on a campaign to rid the Arizona Republican Party of tea party officials, replacing them with allies to the senator in advance of an expected bid for a sixth term in 2016. … In January, members of the state committee lead by tea party supporters formally censured the 2008 GOP presidential nominee for not being conservative enough, particularly on the issues of immigration and the Affordable Care Act.”
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/mccain-re-election-2016-arizona-tea-party/2014/12/30/id/615598/
“In a survey of more than three dozen grass-roots tea party leaders from 29 states, the party’s 2008 presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, was the Republican most cited as a disappointment.”
https://www.politico.com/story/2010/03/a-politico-survey-the-tea-partys-least-favorite-republicans-034363
John McCain will soon be judged by God. For his sake, I hope he has put his trust in Jesus. If not, his heroism in Vietnam will not do him much good. God reserves vengeance for himself, and is much better and more thorough and effective at it than we could ever be.
I’d be curious to know who you think belongs to McCain’s personality cult.
People in a personality cult usually, at a bare minimum, would say things like “I like this guy” or “he’s a really good guy”. But I don’t see anyone saying that about McCain. Even in this thread, almost none of us who have pushed back against some of the conventional Ricochet wisdom haven’t actually said much positive about him. Frank, in his rants, didn’t say a single positive word. I personally think McCain is a superficial blowhard attention whore as a politician who has contributed almost nothing that I agree with. Even the most sympathetic comment I can find in this thread says that McCain-Feingold is travesty.
And looking beyond Ricochet to the broader conservative movement, who actually sings McCain’s praises aside from Lindsey Graham and that insufferable guy from AEI? In 2008, the “establishment” crowd wanted either Romney or Giuliani. Lots of establishment types are happy whenever McCain swoops in to kill some conservative plan, but I don’t see them as actually admiring him as much as being glad that someone else is willing to take the heat for their preferred outcomes.
So yes, McCain does get away with far too much, but the notion that “his defenders will stop at nothing” is a straw man and a projection.
Frankly, this sounds to me much more like a revenge fantasy than how anything ever actually plays out in American politics. But kudos for putting out testable hypotheses, and if Ricochet is still around in 2020 than whichever one of us was correct can lord it over the other.
I remain skeptical, but for reasons that are too complicated for a thread that we’ve already hijacked enough. To put it concisely, I don’t think conservatives have come to grips with the fact that even a critical mass of Republican voters still isn’t that onboard with their dream agenda – and to paraphrase Milton Friedman, in a democracy, simply electing the right people doesn’t elicit the right outcomes if not enough voters are behind those outcomes.
Which brings us to the question: What is the annual cost of the “Lordly” membership level on Ricochet?
I wasn’t 100% serious, but there’s so many charges about DJT and his supposed “cult of personality “ I thought I’d apply the same standards to McCain. Obviously it must be something considering his many screw-ups and failures. The reference is also to the legions who quickly come to his defense with non sequitors about his ancient POW experience and his bravery of declining special treatment- as though this is some exceptional trait any and every soldier or captive doesn’t have – to counter or otherwise blunt legitimate criticism.
Clearly the media, but for a brief moment in history when he was the nominee, fell for his every posture and utterance, and were universally uncritical.
By no means was i applying the cult of personality charge to everyday rank and file conservatives. But there is this residual sympathy for the man that spans his entire adult life ( spent entirely in politics) which I find indulgent, and when combined with his perpetual hero status – cited often by his neocon allies – it’s very much akin to a cult of personality. To be more precise, it’s a cult of celebration of the victim/hero. He’s the perfect combination of things that can’t be criticized. This is fine, except if you’re going to use this shield for politics.
Well, I’ve already been right about Donald Trump’s chances of winning in 2016, as well as how I expected him to govern.
I’ve also been quite wrong. I thought going into Iraq was a good and noble undertaking in 2002. I’d like to think I’m smarter now, though.
Certainly anything can happen to derail my predictions,but I’m seeing this as the direction we are heading in now politically as long as something catastrophic, a war, a terrible political blunder, etc, doesn’t occur..
If Republicans hold the House, (and they will likely gain Senate seats) I believe it follows that more Republicans will climb onboard the Trump train. I believe that many are at this point hedging their bets ( and I’m seeing some already modify their positions Lindsay Graham for example- tho I don’t much trust him if the tides turn) and will have no remaining reason to hold after a 2018 victory. This would be almost unprecedented show of support for the Trump agenda and difficult to discount or rationalize away.
Then the 2020 election will be fast approaching and any continued policy victories and continued economic growth will give Trump coattails and everyone will want his support, which will give him a lot more political leverage than he has now. Imagine what Trump could do with more leverage.
All indications are that he’s improved his standing tremendously with Republicans and Independents, and he’s picking off a fair number of Democrats ( and I’m predicting a sea-change in black votes coming- meaning an extra 7-15% … a devastating number for Dems) the only caveat I have is how energized the Democrats will be.
Again, I believe the Democrats see this possibility too and is why they are acting so unhinged. I also believe they are playing their cards badly and hurting themselves. They are succeeding only in infuriating and yes, energizing those who already will vote Democrat.
I may be optimistic but I don’t feel it’s a “ revenge fantasy”.
There are some things lurking on the edges of any discussion of John McCain. It may take 20 years after his death for a true portrait to emerge.
His time as a POW has granted him this status of being untouchable. Every nasty, petty, disloyal or asinine thing that passes through his lips is excused or framed by it.
His willingness to be politically disloyal is what is loved by the media and he rode that all the way to the nomination. Because the political class of the GOP believed it when they heard all the lefties say, “Now, that John McCain, he’s the type of Republican we can vote for.” Only when they had the chance, they voted for the other guy they really, really loved.
For those of us who had always been suspicious of McCain, we were loyal soldiers. In the grand tradition of party politics we rallied and solidified behind the nominee. (Just like we had done with the Bushes, with Bob Dole and with Mitt Romney four years later.)
It’s like the words “Market Price” on the menu or the lack of a sticker on the windshield of that new Maserati. If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.
The New York Times, the Washington Post, Politico … all the usual suspects.
In 2008, Giuliani had plenty of flaws, but he face-planted in Florida. After that, all I wanted was someone who could beat my idiot Senator.
In 2012, we sent the guy who couldn’t beat the guy who couldn’t beat the guy.
To paraphrase Silent Cal, some problems conveniently roll into a ditch if you just ignore them.
They’re part of the broader conservative movement?
No, but they do like to promote people without a chance of winning the general election. Like President Trump, for example.
Note to GOP:
They are the ones whose praise will be the most effusive.
So?
I swore I wouldn’t vote for him if nominated. Palin was the only reason I softened. I had Palin/McCain bumperstickers made up, then he pulled those idiot stunts during the financial crisis that infuriated me again. On election day I stood in the booth for about 5 minutes before I could force myself to mark his name. Since then he’s absolutely confirmed my opinion of him as a loathsome petty tyrant. Shame on Arizona for foisting him on us unto death.
Because in the grand tradition of the GopE he was “the next guy up”. Trump finally smashed that idiot tradition.
Moderator Note:
Ad hominem[Redacted]
The liberal press loves to praise John McCain when he’s fighting the Republicans. Then they turn around and label him Trump Jr. two days later when he says something vaguely conservative.
That’s not a cult of personality, that’s manipulative friendship.
There is not and has never been a cult of personality around McCain the way there was/is around Obama or Trump (or Bill Clinton for that matter). But there seems to be a number of people here who require the existence of a McCain personality cult to prop up their stilted worldview.
This also reflects the fantasy narrative that 2008 and 2012 were somehow the establishment calling the shots over the wishes of the Republican base.
The historical truth is that the (self-selected) GOP field in both 2008 and 2012 (and 2016 for that matter) were bitterly disappointing. McCain didn’t win because the establishment put all their weight behind him, he won because Giuliani had the genius notion that he only needed to campaign in one state out of 50, and because Romney went from one cringe-inducing “who let the dogs out?” moment to the next.
Wash, rinse, repeat for 2012. Anyone who thinks that Gingrich (who kept shooting himself in the foot after Romney caught him out in one debate) or Pawlenty (who creeped out half the country) would have actually stood a chance if Romney didn’t have so much campaign cash is delusional. (And Jeb also proved that all the campaign funding in the world doesn’t buy success).
It’s not the GOPe’s fault that the GOP field always sucks.
To be fair, the Trump haters who think that Marco Rubio could have waltzed to victory in 2018 by simply giving the camera the puppy dog eyes while reciting the Declaration of Independence in Spanish are just as delusional as the people who think that Pawlenty could have beat Obama if it weren’t for Mitt’s sinister paymasters.
2018 was really the exact same phenomenon as 2008 and 2012: a fairly large field of lackluster candidates, in which the ultimate winner did not have the support or enthusiasm of a large chunk of the party’s voters (compared with, say, Obama, who was tremendously popular among rank-and-file Democrats in 2008).
In the end, all three elections were won by the guy who could get through a speech without sounding like he was reading from memorized notes or without tripping over his own shoelaces. I know that doesn’t fulfill the satisfying narrative of the epic battle of base voters vs. the elite, but it’s both the simplest and most accurate (and consistent) explanation of how both McCain and Trump were nominated: they were simply better candidates than the losers they were up against.
That doesn’t mean the establishment didn’t put 91.3 percent of its weight behind McCain.
Except they didn’t. NR was big on Romney, and the majority of the other heavyweights who declared were for Giuliani. Almost nobody liked McCain at first. People only started getting behind him after Giuliani imploded and Romney dropped out at CPAC. So while the establishment certainly snubbed Huckabee (unfairly I would add), they weren’t in McCain’s corner until late in the game.
And in any case, even if the establishment did support the winning case, that’s not proof that they played a major role in getting that candidate nominated. It’s correlation, but not causation. And in 2016 there wasn’t even that correlation. Lots of people here like to take that as the victory of the oppressed voters against the elite, but the answer that fits the data even better is: the elite never had as much power as people here think they did.