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This Thanksgiving, Be More Like Meghan
On the View earlier this week, co-host Meghan McCain was asked about Lindsey Graham, ostensibly in order to throw him under the bus on national television. McCain and her father, former Senator John McCain, were close friends with the Grahams and the younger McCain grew up with Sen. Graham. McCain got a considerable amount of heat for her refusal to comment on Graham on air:
Hey @MeghanMcCain, you can talk all you want about respecting veterans. But what about respecting the peacemakers who dedicate their lives to stopping warmongers like @LindseyGrahamSC?
You can count on us to make beautiful trouble as long as corrupt war criminals are in office! https://t.co/q0IkyKf7fe pic.twitter.com/HOVbOoB0rX
— CODEPINK (@codepink) November 26, 2019
She followed up with her statements on air with a tweet:
I literally grew up with @LindseyGrahamSC who I have always considered an uncle. We never have agreed on everything, and do not now. I refuse to let politics destroy my personal relationships across the board. I love him very much and always will. Please stop judging me about it.
— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) November 25, 2019
With Thanksgiving tomorrow and a million think-pieces circulating about how to handle politics with family members of different political stripes, McCain’s words are important ones to keep in mind for everyone, on every side of the aisle.
Published in General
It’s not easy to continue to love people with whom we disagree, especially regarding issues we feel passionate about. My hope is that during this holiday season, people will find both the strength and humility to rise above their differences and remember those with whom we differ and whom we love.
Preaching to the choir. It’s the Left that’s willing to ruin relationships over politics.
My nephew and his wife refuse to attend his uncle’s Thanksgiving party because they were offended by something conservative someone said once. Joyless, ungrateful scolds.
No it’s not just the left; the right has issues, too. Sometimes we are the ones who avoid those on the left; we are less likely to scold them, but we do avoid them.
He was a warmongerer?
I avoid them because it’s all politics, all the time.
There are exceptions to every rule, but there are still rules. As a rule, the Right is not as brittle and in need of safe spaces as the Left. We are also better mannered. We tend not to bring up controversial topics with family who are lefties, which is stifling to conversation, but the alternative (canceling family) is worse.
It’s called the Fonda-Stewart rule.
Henry Fonda was every bit the lefty his daughter Jane is. James Stewart was decidedly to the right, a career Army/Air Force man who lost an adopted son in Vietnam.
They met in New York in 1932 as both men honed their acting skills on Broadway and roomed together. After several arguments about politics they simply vowed to agree to disagree and never talk about it again. They remained life long friends.
The logical end of not talking with someone who doesn’t agree with you 100% is that you talk with no one. That is the reality of individuality. Only the proponents of the “hive mind” cannot see or accept that. “Socialization” is the process of learning to navigate differences without provoking rejection and isolation. (Jordan Peterson has a lot to say about that in his 12 Rules for Life –a great gift for Christmas for anyone having trouble coping with reality.) Disagreement is a choice.
It’s worth noting that Meghan’s husband is Ben Domenech, the co-founder of The Federalist, which is very Trump-friendly (just about every third Remnant podcast, we get some snark from Jonah about how Trump-friendly The Federalist is, so you know it’s true). If Meghan based everything on politics, her marriage at this point would look something like the George and Kellyanne Conway situation.
Instead, what you see from clips from “The View” is that McCain manages to be very Trump-hostile in terms of personality at the same time she is very Trump-supportive in terms of his agenda, which is why she annoys Joy and Whoopi so much. They can’t get it through their heads that Meghan can think Trump’s a horrible person in part because of how he treated her father and not at the same time do a Bill Kristol/Max Boot/Jen Rubin, and then oppose every political position Trump takes, simply because Trump is taking them.
She’s able to separate the politics from the personal with Trump, as well as with Lindsey Graham, and people like the Code Pink types hate her for it.
Or is she just trying to keep Lindsey happy with her so that his corruption probes don’t implicate her dear departed despicable disloyal dad?
This is a terribly uncharitable interpretation of her comments. Happy Thanksgiving!
I don’t understand this article. Meghan McCain is heroic for not criticizing Lindsey Graham for some undisclosed — something. Is this Washington DC current events insider code or something?
Actually, the tweet implied that he was a “corrupt war criminal.” The response was pretty weak, in my estimation, implying something like: “I refuse to let the fact that my honorary Uncle Lindsay is a corrupt war criminal to change my personal love for him.”
Meghan McCain has no credibility at all, with me, as a proponent of harmony. Here’s something from an article at The Hill back in July:
The article also noted that Meghan McCain had played a video of Graham from 2015 “calling Trump a ‘race-baiting xenophobic religious bigot’ who didn’t represent his Republican Party.”
I think that Graham has made it clear that he was wrong about President Trump. Meghan McCain has not, and in light of her prior vitriol, she should have no credibility in making a plea for peace, love, and understanding among Republicans.
I do not say that Meghan McCain is beyond redemption. She could change her mind, and apologize for her prior vitriol. But in the absence of such action, I don’t find her to be a credible source.
Incidentally, I don’t mean that she would have to become a strong Trump supporter. She could simply apologize for excessive and hyperbolic rhetoric in the past, explaining that while she disagrees with the President and his supporters on some issues, and sometimes objects to his bombastic statements, she does not consider either the President or his supporters to be beyond the pale.
Like I said above, Meghan’s positioning on “The View” is unusual, in that she’ll strongly defend a lot of Trump’s positions … as long as they’re disconnected from Trump and his personal interactions. Compared to Abby Huntsman and her support of Trump-connected conservative positions there, Meghan’s Sean Hannity.
She hasn’t earned any better charity.
M. McC. is small minded and vindictive re Trump (a big negative). So was her father. That she is sweet on Graham (a positive) just highlights her tunnel vision and placement of her personal feelings over and above her concern for the future of the country. Her whining about the Democrats’ inability to field a candidate capable of beating Trump is disgusting.
She’s just a woman who says things, and who has no power over any of us. She does push back on a lot of leftist non-sense, although I don’t track her every statement.
She has no power so long as we don’t give her any. This is my way of ensuring it.