McCain endorses Kamala Harris
Although the late Sen. John McCain’s career was in its twilight years when Donald Trump first ran for president, the moderate self-described “maverick” senator from Arizona cast a considerable shadow over much of Donald Trump’s presidency and the aftermath. Trashing the legacy of an actual war hero early on in his presidential bid was actually a pretty clear foretaste of the shape of things to come – as the former guy has found himself embroiled in a slow moving and embarrassing scandal involving Gold Star families and Arlington National Cemetery.
Generally, the worst scandal for a presidential candidate to have is one that confirms any negative perceptions the general public already had about that candidate (whether or not it’s true.) In the case of Hillary Clinton, the decision by James Comey to reopen the email investigation made her look untrustworthy in the eyes of swing voters (even though most of the new emails were duplicates of what the FBI already reviewed.) In the case of Donald Trump, he’s a selfish human being who can’t fathom why anyone would serve their country in the armed forces and he’s largely admitted he thinks the military should only be loyal to him directly.
Now his failure to formally apologize or produce the evidence that supposedly would exonerate him from accusations that he used the graves of fallen soldiers as a political prop is starting to catch up to him, with surprising figures coming out of the woodwork to condemn his actions: among them, his own nephew, Fred Trump and Jimmy McCain, the late senator’s son, who announced his decision to change his party affiliation to Democratic and endorse Vice President Harris.
This scandal continues to grow, suggesting that Trump’s long history of spitting on veterans is finally catching up to him, and a new scandal is the absolute last thing the GOP wants at this point, but it doesn’t mean that we can afford to look at it as the final blow to his campaign and just sit back. Now, more than ever, is the time to run up the score and make sure Vice President Harris, who truly does care about men and women in service, is elected on Nov 5 with a Democratic trifecta.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making