Donald Trump had two options yesterday. He picked the wrong option, and by doing so may have sealed his own fate.
Trump had taken such pains to make his contempt for John McCain known to all. He had mocked McCain’s status as a prisoner of war, tortured in Vietnam. He had mocked him for his vote against repeal of the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), mimicking the disabled Senator’s “thumbs down” during his rallies. He deliberately avoided mentioning his name this month when he signed a defense appropriations bill titled in McCain’s name. This despite the fact that Senator McCain was known by everyone to be dying of brain cancer.
And while for many of us these gestures of utter disrespect simply confirmed Trump’s lack of class and character, his behavior yesterday, while the nation focused on McCain’s funeral service and the impassioned speeches of former Presidents, exhibited a depraved indifference so profound that Americans everywhere will likely never forget it. Particularly in 60 days, when they go out to vote.
This weekend multiple polls revealed Trump’s disapproval registering an all-time high. And while 60% of the voting public “disapproves” of him, a full 53 percent of the voting public actively despises him. Half of the voting public wants him impeached.
On Saturday, as reported in an (unusually caustic) analysis by the New York Times, Trump did nothing but cement those feelings in stone, and he probably made them worse.
[A]s Mr. McCain was eulogized in the presence of much of the American political establishment, Mr. Trump, pointedly uninvited, engaged in what by now is a familiar weekend routine. He sent a series of angry tweets aimed at some political adversaries, then left the White House to play a round of golf at his resort in Virginia.
Everyone in this country with a television set or a smartphone saw what was happening at the Washington National Cathedral. They may not have been fans of McCain, but the vast majority of Americans know that there is a certain way to behave when someone has died and is being eulogized. Death is a great leveler—it cuts across political boundaries. And because it will ultimately brook no resistance, Death commands respect and silence. Death is not frivolous. It happens to all of us, and all of us, one way or another, have experienced it.
Only those wholly bereft of any trace of human decency would fail to recognize this. On Saturday, Trump revealed himself to the entire nation as such a person. Where even the simplest, slightest gesture of respect could have mattered, there was none.
Throughout the morning, the three-mile distance between the White House and the cathedral, the traditional place for Washington’s most somber gatherings, demarcated a political chasm that Mr. Trump did not cross.
For any Americans still harboring the illusion that this President cares one whit about their interests, yesterday’s demonstration spoke volumes. This is not a man who would stand in your corner. Not someone who would support you. Only an indecent, abominable wretch would trivialize death in such a way. And yet there he was, playing a round of golf and cavorting nonsensically on Twitter.
[W]hile he was urged by his aides to behave in a more unifying manner after the White House was criticized for initially flying the American flag only briefly at half-staff in Mr. McCain’s honor, the president made it clear on Saturday that he had no intention of letting his former adversary — whose carefully stage-managed plans played out as his own subtle rebuke of the president — have all the attention.
At one point the Trump’s Tweets were being sent during the service itself.
As Mr. Trump tweeted, onlookers outside the cathedral lined up along the streets, and pointed through the wrought-iron fences. They identified the politicians streaming in, lifting their children on their shoulders for a better look.
This is not someone who anyone—whatever their political persuasion-- wants their children to emulate. Not someone to admire. And certainly not someone deserving of the office he currently occupies. He is something decidedly inhuman. And while a segment of the public may be impervious to his lack of humanity, because they themselves share the same sort of callous, emptiness inside, for most Americans what was displayed by Trump yesterday did nothing but send a cold chill down their spines.
They will take that with them into November, and beyond.