Bridging the political divide
God bless him. Sen. John McCain, who is battling brain cancer, released an excerpt last week from his upcoming political memoir, The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights and Other Appreciations. The book addresses, among other things, political polarization and suggestions for closing the divide.
It is a timely topic from a man whose time is short.
McCain, 81, revealed last July that he had been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer after a blood clot procedure revealed a malignant tumor. The former presidential candidate and prisoner of war points out in his memoir that he hasn’t at times lived up to his own standard, as he has “disagreed, sometimes too heatedly, with all of” the six presidents with whom he has served.
“This is my last term,” McCain wrote in an excerpt that was posted on Apple News. “If I hadn’t admitted that to myself before this summer, a stage 4 cancer diagnosis acts as ungentle persuasion.”
The Arizona Republican released the excerpt as Americans debated the appropriateness of comedian fodder from the recent White House Correspondent’s Association dinner. The WHCA has expressed regret over comedian Michelle Wolf’s monologue. Many have chimed in on social media about her treatment of President Trump’s Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
I thought the comments targeting Sanders were inappropriate. Yes, the dinner is a roast format, but the script was meaner and strayed from the tone of past events. Sanders is doing her job and it is a tough one. That said, Wolf’s comments are on a par with the vitriol coming from Sanders’ boss. I’ve never heard of anything that bad come from the White House Correspondents dinner, but I’ve never heard the type of daily trash talk coming from a president. It is sad all the way around.
A Pine Bluff area reader shared the following observation with me via email Tuesday: “Does it strike you odd that they’re holding a comedian at the White House Correspondent’s dinner to a higher standard of speech content/conduct than they are the president? He can and does publicly tweet and say whatever crosses his mind WITH IMPUNITY.”
McCain says humility is the key to bridging the political divide. Merriam-Webster defines humility as “freedom from pride or arrogance; the quality or state of being humble.” Humble is defined as not proud or haughty.
McCain defines it as “the self-knowledge that you possess as much inherent dignity as anyone else, and not one bit more.” He adds, “Among its other virtues, humility makes for more productive politics. If it vanishes entirely, we will tear our society apart.”
So true. But our current president demonstrates an unfortunate lack of humility. Trump, who dodged the draft five times — four deferments for college and one for a heel spur — once mocked McCain for being captured after his plane was shot down while flying over Vietnam. “I like people that weren’t captured,” Trump said in 2015.
This type of mockery is standard behavior for Trump and involves a growing list of targets. We can not look to our leader to set the tone or example for our nation. But we can look to one another and not let the divisiveness tear apart our country.
McCain wrote that “the appearance of toughness, or a reality show facsimile of toughness, seems to matter more than any of our values. I would like to see us recover our sense that we are more alike than different.”
Yes. We are more alike than different — all God’s children. We can embrace the concept of humility and treat our fellow man accordingly. It is up to each one of us to be better, kinder people — and to find and elevate leaders at all levels who share similar values.