The Civility in Remembering John McCain’s Barbaric Legacy

Patrick Nathan
Aug 31, 2018 · 4 min read

It’s easy to speak ill of the dead. Or to speak fondly. Either way, the dead won’t chime in. Since John McCain’s death on Saturday, many have spoken with what they call civility. They may not have liked his policies, but they admired the respect he held for his political opponents — something that has vanished, they say, from the Republican Party.

Sadly, civility and respect have not vanished from the Republican Party because it is ethically irresponsible to call civil or respectful those policies which actively seek to subjugate millions of American citizens, mainly minorities. I use the word “sadly” because it saddens me how easily people fall for this rhetoric. It depresses me how fervently people believe there’s nothing barbaric in policy that deprives human beings of their rights and livelihood if one says “please” and “thank you” while signing those policies into law. McCain’s legacy includes supporting the Iraq War, opposing the creation of a federal holiday recognizing Martin Luther King, Jr., supporting violent regimes in Central and South America, accepting more than $7 million from the NRA, voting against a ban on the use of torture, and other acts of so-called heroism.

Of course, McCain also voted against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act in 1996, supported Arizona’s 2004 initiative to ban same-sex marriage, and supported California’s Proposition 8, among other anti-LGBT policies throughout his career. As a queer person, friends and family members who eulogize McCain as a great man “despite differences in opinion” send me a clear signal that my life is not a political priority, and that they would happily sacrifice my rights and livelihood in what is called political compromise. Of course I can’t speak for people of color, persons with disabilities, immigrants, or other marginalized groups, but I imagine the alarm they hear in such statements at least rhymes with mine. There is no political compromise with a party whose legacy is eliminating citizens from the polis. An agreement in which one party concedes that money is more important than individual lives is not an agreement, but a bribe: “We’ll hand over the queers, the black and the brown, the disabled, and whoever else you want if you promise that we can remain comfortable.”

Remaining comfortable is the great temptation, and has been throughout the Republican Party’s four-decade assault not only on the rights and protections of minorities, but so too the economic security of our government and any effort to maintain our planet’s ability to sustain human life. That we’re to call anyone civil or respectful who supports these policies is so disrespectful of language itself it’s almost impossible to understand. Yet it’s understandable if you place John McCain side by side with the President of the United States, who has never hidden his brash contempt for minorities and women, nor his disregard for the environment, nor his loyalty to the few Americans whose obscene wealth, if taxed and redistributed, could bring poverty, hunger, and the suffering that millions of Americans face every day to an end. Donald Trump is loud. Donald Trump is rude. Donald Trump has made painfully visible every inhumane policy the GOP ever dreamed of; and no matter who you are on the liberal spectrum, you’re confronted with it every day. Because Trump is also sensational, a media profit center. Omnipresent, he makes the cruelty of Republican policy impossible to ignore, and that — and only that — is what people mean when they call for civility.

For decades, millions have had to face GOP policy every day of their lives — but not the majority, and not all at once. Even as a gay man, I could ignore, under previous presidents, the horror of ongoing police brutality against the black community, or the detainment of undocumented immigrants, or even the way misogyny infects the workplace. But with Trump in the White House these catastrophes are in front of me — on social media, in the news, in conversations with friends and colleagues — day and night, and they’ve educated me. No longer is my window into GOP policy solely its discrimination against and diminishment of queer lives, but its overall contempt for all Americans who aren’t straight, white, rich, Christian, and male. As I’ve come to understand this, the necessity of rejecting any compromise with the Republican Party has become clear, and that includes refusing to honor, in death, a man whose entire legacy is dishonoring life. If it is civil to do what is best for civilization, it means remembering men like McCain as they were, and using their lives as examples of what not to become, what not to believe, and above all what not to do with one’s power. To call such men great only paves over their hate with indifference.

Patrick Nathan

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