Nick Pemberton in Counterpunch, Aug 2018 : John McCain was a fierce Zionist, but such a trait is almost as American as apple pie. McCain, more than almost anybody else, pushed for more troops in Iraq. When George W. Bush caved and sent in 20,000 extra troops to Iraq in 2007, Democrats labeled the move “The McCain doctrine”. Americans even dumber than Bush II have begun to label Bush “reasonable”. The reasonable Bush talked of 50 years in Iraq, McCain raised him to 100. McCain was among the most enthusiastic advocates of war in Afghanistan as well. And like his buddy Barack across the aisle, he felt threatened by Libya’s success under Muammar Gaddafi. McCain’s virile posturing against Vladimir Putin has been just as eye-opening as Trump’s bromance with Putin.

It all smelled rotten when John McCain sided with those good ol’ American values and invited his brother from another party Barack Obama to speak at his funeral—presumably to spite Donald Trump. Politicians nowadays like to pretend that the good ol’ boys club of the past was free of Trump’s virulent misogyny. But dig through McCain’s public statements and you will find that there are plenty of sexist ones. Give Trump this: he wastes little time on sentimentality. He believes in nothing and nobody. Trump is the natural next step for a society that is morally bankrupt and relies purely on inauthentic jingoistic kitsch to justify its ridiculousness.