Weekend Reflection: John McCain vs. Donald Trump

As word came that John McCain had discontinued treatment for his brain cancer, one knew it was only a matter of milliseconds before America’s national brain cancer, Trumpism, metastasized into a mass of agonizingly idiotic cultist attacks against the senator. What better opportunity for tearing down a man’s life and legacy, the malignancy reasoned, than the moment of his final trial?

And so the cancer attacked, filling internet comment sections with hateful, sub-rational putridity, i.e., normal Trump-think, in a desperate attempt to sound intelligent enough to pass judgment on another man’s character and worth, even while that man and his loved ones face the end.

And this morning (Korean time), I see that apparently the reason that the cause of this national cancer himself, President Trump, has refrained from commenting on the McCain family’s sad news, is that

Trump does not want to comment on McCain before he dies, White House officials said, and there was no effort to publish a statement Friday as many politicians released supportive comments on the ailing senator.

As the writer of the article linked above politely analyzed this explanation:

Note that the president does not want to comment, not that he can’t, or that it would put McCain or anybody else at risk if he did. He just doesn’t want to add his support. This president is such a petty, self-centered, spiteful pustule that even as Sen. McCain faces the end of his life, he refuses to set his outlandish ego aside and offer support.

Is Trump a “pustule” or a “cancer”? Oh, let’s not quibble — “po-tay-to,” “po-tah-to,” I think we’re all on the same page here.

Now, as the inevitable follow-up news arrives — John McCain has died — all this vitriol from the Trump cult, and vitriolic silence from the Pustule-in-Chief, has led me to wonder just how well President Trump would do in a head-to-head comparison against Senator McCain. (That’s irony, of course, folks; I’m not that dumb.)

So, in the name of collegiality, building bridges, and ticking off the millions of men and women who have sacrificed their minds and their country to their reality TV idolatry, let us take a moment, shall we, and get the ball rolling on what will surely be, in the history books of a century hence, the grand question of this Republican era: McCain vs. Trump.

McCain lost a presidential election against a young phenomenon adored by the media and the leftist elite.
Trump (barely) won a presidential election against a decrepit catastrophe despised by everyone who wasn’t getting paid to praise her.

McCain bent over backwards to be civil to a fault toward his election opponent.
Trump has never been civil, couldn’t define the word, and would spell it incorrectly at least seven times out of ten.

McCain was fairly accused by Republican voters of pandering to the media too much.
Trump has spent the last twenty years literally doing nothing but pandering to the media, to the delight of Republican voters.

McCain, by politician standards, could be quite eloquent when he cared about a topic.
Trump, by elementary school standards, is incoherent even when talking about the only topic he cares about, namely Donald Trump.

McCain appeased the grassroots by reluctantly promising to build a wall, though we’ll never know whether he would really have done it.
Trump built a massive grassroots cult by enthusiastically promising to build a wall, though we knew perfectly well he would never really do it.

McCain was a bit of a womanizer after returning from five and a half years in a Vietnamese POW camp.
Trump, who phoned in sick during the war, calls his life as a womanizer his “personal Vietnam.”

McCain crashed several planes.
Trump is a train wreck.

McCain wore a bad combover.
Trump is a bad combover.

McCain sometimes seemed too sympathetic to the Democrats.
Trump was a Democrat supporter for most of his adult life, donated massively to Democrats for years, and says Bill Clinton was the best President of his lifetime.

McCain was probably less of a “maverick” than he styled himself as.
Trump is a complete fake whose true mind cannot be defined because it does not exist, and who merely pretends to be whatever he thinks will gain him a personal advantage today, regardless of whether it contradicts anything or everything he said yesterday.

McCain moved like a man crippled by years of torture as a prisoner of war.
Trump moves like a man who has never opened a window by himself in his life.

McCain learned a secret code used to communicate through walls with fellow POWs.
Trump learned to use rhetorical dog whistles to become the only Republican president publicly praised and supported by America’s most prominent white nationalist leaders.

McCain frequently and openly called Vladimir Putin a thug and an evil man.
Donald Trump…well, do we have to say it?

McCain publicly admitted to having been a poor pilot and having made mistakes in his life.
Trump declares he has never asked for God’s forgiveness, and has nothing to apologize for.

McCain tended to dismiss much of the so-called conservative media, and especially talk radio, as a cynical, rabble-rousing, profit-seeking entertainment industry.
Trump proved that McCain was right.

Well, that’s my attempt to kick off the future great debate. I will leave it to the real historians of 2118 — or to any readers of today who wish to offer a useful addendum — to complete the comparison.

RIP John McCain.