"Respect for the office"

A sitting United States Senator, John McCain, has died. This is a man who served in that capacity for thirty-one years, additionally served as a United States Congressman for four years, served in the United States Navy for twenty-three years, including five and a half years spent in the infamous Hanoi Hilton as a prisoner of war, enduring years torture and solitary confinement.

My political and policy beliefs were often at odds with Senator McCain’s, and I vehemently disagreed with many of his positions. What I never for a minute doubted though was his integrity, morality, honor, and love for this Nation of ours. He may have been wrong on certain issues, but he did work across the aisle in an effort to reach compromises and concessions that would benefit the American people, and for that his position as a United States Senator truly deserved my full “respect for the office”.

This brings us to the current highest elected official in our country. However one may view the manner in which he was elected, and maybe someday we will all know if not the exact details at least we’ll know enough to ensure the integrity of future elections, regardless of our personal feelings for this man, we are told by some that we must “respect the office”. Now there have been many examples of this man’s lack of integrity, morality, honor, and even basic competence, not only prior to taking office, but since. His childish propensity for schoolyard name calling, his racist and misogynistic declarations and policies, his often incoherent and inflammatory tweeting, these things alone are enough to justify not respecting the office, because they are evidence that the man himself does not respect the office, nor the American people that the office serves.

Now though we have a new low that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt the disrespect this man has for not only the office he holds, but for the institutions that guide our Nation, and the people who serve in these institutions on our behalf, and by extension the very citizens he supposedly serves. John McCain served his country, both as a Naval officer and as an elected representative his entire adult lifetime. His passing is a loss for the entire Nation and should be honored as such. That Donald Trump chose to mark McCain’s passing with a simple tweet expressing nothing but sympathy for his family, and has not ordered the White House flag to be flown at half mast during McCain’s period of lying in state is not just disrespectful to a political enemy, it is disrespectful to the citizens of our Nation, the office he holds, and yes even the flag he often wraps himself in at his rallies.

Yes, as a veteran and citizen of this Nation I respect the Office of the President, but I do not and never will respect this man that currently holds that position because he has never done anything that even remotely deserves that respect.