I didn’t watch any part of the funeral for John McCain yesterday or read any news stories about what happened there and who said what. But I did glance at the headline of a write-up on the proceedings at The New Yorker, which says everything you need to know about what took place:
McCain’s grand funeral underscored a fact that is often lost about Washington these days. The city is much more bipartisan, in some respects, than it has ever been, more united than it may currently seem, in its hatred of Donald Trump. https://t.co/wPBayKgOpB
— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) September 2, 2018
It’s pretty remarkable that the grief of a family was overshadowed by yet another salvo of attacks (in which even certain family members participated in) on political opponents, certain groups of Americans, and the principle of the consent of the governed. This is not due to an abstract thing called “polarization” (a clinical political science term that cannot hope to capture what’s really going on) but the very Cold Civil War that Michael Walsh and others have been telling us about for quite some time. When even funerals are seen as just another opportunity to attack your political opponents (and at least half of the country), then things are bad. Really bad. The Cold Civil War just might be ready to turn hot.