Thirty Years Too Late: The Implosion of John McCain and the Demise of the Regressive Right

Hah-hah, right? Guess, what? It’s only partly a joke. Most regressives earnestly believe in most of the items on the above wish list, and earnestly believe that they represent majority opinion in America. Seriously. I’m. Not. Kidding.

Fortunately, in this there is great hope for this country’s recovery. For as regressives meet to lick their wounds – and I know of three such immediate post-election major summonings to the Council of Darkness already scheduled – they will be as oblivious to the cause of their demise as were their ancestors, the dinosaurs. Which means they will also be oblivious to any meaningful solution. Which, by definition, they would necessarily have to be anyhow, since the only real solution for them would be to pack up their bags, join the ACLU, and become liberals. I mean that quite seriously (and we are, in fact, already beginning to see the leading edge of that coming stampede), because, at the end of the day, the fundamental flaw of regressivism is regressivism itself. Their ideas – now explored in total, now fully tested in practice – don’t work, and therefore aren’t popular. They never were, in fact, popular, but a healthy dose of marketing genius applied to a narcissistic, selfish and willfully ignorant electorate was nevertheless enough to put regressives over the top time and again, starting with Reagan. Now, even that old black magic has ceased to work.

Thus, the real explanation for the regressive rout we are witnessing runs deeper than George W. Bush, and in fact goes to his very electoral success. People have seen what it means to put these criminals in charge and – despite the fact that the public actually doesn’t know the half of it yet – they don’t like what they see.

Likewise, the explanation for the regressive train wreck also certainly goes deeper than the pathetic figure of John McCain. But, in so many ways – stylistically and ethically, even more than politically – the McCain of 2008 has become the very living embodiment of the moral cancer hiding behind the sham ideology of free markets, strong national defense and obsessive sexual regulation. And he is being received accordingly.

A recent New York Times article described the senator’s sentiments in the wake of his loss in 2000 to that scion of darkness – the ultimate child of privilege, history’s all-time greatest legacy admittee to life – the guy who employed Rovian scorched earth techniques to take out not only a war hero opponent, but also a member of his own party. Despite this humiliating defeat at the hands of a patently inferior being, McCain could still hold his head high. "After his loss, he professed himself grateful, at the age of 65, for what might be left of his time. ‘I did not get to be president of the United States. And I doubt I shall have reason or opportunity to try again,’ he wrote, but added, ‘I might yet become the man I always wanted to be.’"

Sadly, McCain was wrong on both predictions.

He did have the reason and opportunity to try again, and he seized them vigorously – though from the perspective of his honor and his legacy in history he would have been better off not to.

Because he also didn’t become the man that he, or anyone else, would want to be. Instead, he hired the very same assassination team used against him in the 2000 election, and he employed their very same techniques against a decent and honorable opponent, whose great crime was peddling hope and justice to a battered and morally hungry American electorate.

And thus, instead of raising his party and country from the gutter of Bushism, John McCain dove down into it himself, with a literal and figurative vengeance.

He didn’t become the man he always wanted to be. Instead, he became George W. Bush.

Whoever wanted to be that?

Not even George W. Bush.

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