General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Who is the Democratic Party's version of John McCain? [View all]Garrett78
(10,721 posts)When I think of McCain, I think primarily of these 4 things:
1) suffering 5+ years of torture (the main reason I hold back somewhat in my criticism of McCain--I can't imagine going through what he went through)
2) a horrific voting record overall (let's be honest, he caused much more harm than help)
3) being one of the many anti-Trump Republicans who don't/didn't accept that 50 years of Republican policy and rhetoric led directly to the rise of Trump
4) him being widely considered a "moderate," which speaks to how utterly insane our society has become (see #2), and to how much Republicans have been able to move the Overton Window in recent decades
So, there's no need for a Democratic Party version of McCain.
As for the concept known as "patriotism," I share Robert Jensen's thoughts: http://robertwjensen.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Citizens-of-the-Empire-Chapter-3-Patriotism-pdf.pdf