Mr. McCain’s colleagues remembered a man who was a friend even while they fought. Mr. Trump, still playing his campaign-rally character on TV, promises the joy of savaging your enemies even after they’ve been defeated. His rally crowds (including the one in Indiana) still chant “Lock her up!” nearly two years after Mrs. Clinton’s loss, joined in one case by his attorney general.
This was the bargain the country made electing someone who became a celebrity for saying “You’re fired,” who uses the terms “nice” and “Boy Scout” as insults, who once told People magazine, “Man is the most vicious of all animals, and life is a series of battles ending in victory or defeat.”
John McCain was, per nearly everyone who spoke about him, a battler, too. But he coordinated his last media blitz to say that American leaders should, after and even amid a fight, see their opponents as humans and not simply obstacles to be crushed.
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