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Jeet Heer @HeerJeet
, 6 tweets, 1 min read Read on Twitter
1. John McCain lived a long, eventful life but I think for the foreseeable future his legacy will be bound up with his last few years, when he seemed to be one of the few alternatives inside the GOP to Trump.
2. But to see McCain just as Trump's foil is to over-simplify. McCain was both the alternative to Trump but also a precursor. Their paths diverged, but before divergence the paths had some important overlap.
3. To understand McCain worth pondering the larger political project (called "American greatness conservatism" by people like Brooks & Kristol) that McCain was part of. American Greatness was different from MAGA but also prepared the path for MAGA.
4. American Greatness conservatism might be defined as an expansive nationalism with at least some inclusive aspiration, as against the cramped, spiteful resentful nationalism of MAGA.
5. And of course in choosing Palin as running mate in 2008, McCain helped prepare GOP for Trump. Also by running in 2010 on promise to "complete the dang fence."
6. For more on McCain as the alternative to Trump who also prepared the way for Trump, see here: newrepublic.com/article/150895…
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More from @HeerJeet see all

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There's a really important conversation going on in economics about gender bias in the field. This is an illuminating thread reporting on a panel discussion about the topic.
In terms of the gender/economics debate, I wonder if the question might not be illuminated by some intellectual history. The field has been shaped to a significant degree by figures who defined themselves in opposition to social movements (like feminism).
I'd love, for example, to see a gender analysis of the work of F.A. Hayek, who once argued that John Stuart Mill became a socialist because he has henpecked by the feminist Harriet Taylor
Read 4 tweets
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1. I think it's time to do another thread on this history of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
2. The founder of the Ethics and Public Policy Center was Ernest Lefever who was rejected for a Reagan administration nomination in 1981 because of testimony of 2 of his brothers, one who said he was incompetent, the other who said he was a racist.
3. From 1996 to 2001, the President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center was Elliott Abrams, who had perviously been convicted for lying to Congress during the Iran/Contra scandal.
Read 5 tweets
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1. Are critics allowed to change their minds? Do such changes undermine their authority? My colleague @Jo_Livingstone & I take up this question in an extended conversation.
2. Among the topics discussed: Harlan Ellison, Anthony Powell, F.R. Leavis, Queenie Leavis, Susan Sontag, Leni Riefenstahl, Sidney Hook's suppression of his early work, @nicholsonbaker8 & more!
3. Looking back on it, one thing I wish I had raised is the cost of not changing your mind. Pauline Kael, one of the best critics who ever lived, illustrates the point, she adamantly refused to rewatch movies, which limited her response to more complex work.
Read 6 tweets

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"John McCain knew what he was doing... He wanted a pageant of everything this administration* has trashed and put up for sale ... a morality play shot through with Shakespearian portent and foreshadowing, a pageant of democracy's vengeance."
esquire.com/news-politics/…
"This was a funeral with more than one purpose—to celebrate the passing of John McCain and to summon a rebirth of politics that did not so much reek of grift and vodka."
Kudos to @esquire and @CharlesPPierce
And his obit is beautifully crafted, too
@esquire and @CharlesPPierce
esquire.com/news-politics/…
Read 3 tweets
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.@realDonaldTrump is such a disgrace to what America stands for, John McCain banned him from his funeral. Everyone’s there—Presidents Obama, Bush, Clinton—now at the National Catherdral to honor a great American. Trump? In his safe place—watching FoxNews and tweeting propaganda.
John McCain's pallbearers – including Russian dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza, Democrat Russ Feingold, former VP Joe Biden, actor Warren Beatty, former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, William Cohen—stand in attendance at the late senator's memorial service at National Catherdral in DC
Meghan McCain went there, fiercely: “We gather here to mourn the passing of American greatness—the real thing—not cheap rhetoric from men who will never come near the sacrifice he gave so willingly…nor opportunistic appropriation by those who lived lives of comfort and privilege
Read 8 tweets
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By the virtue of being in Arizona, I met Senator McCain several times. When I told him that I was Iranian, he took my hand, held it, looked into my eyes, and told me that, one day, there will be a statue of Neda Aghasoltan in Tehran. There were no cameras. There was nobody. 1/4
It was not a stunt for a campaign video. It was just the old man seeing a political dissident and giving me the courage to keep fighting. He would seek to meet with political dissidents, just so he could give us courage and ask how he could help.2/4
He was a true believer in the cause of liberty. He was one of the last Republicans in the tradition of Reagan, or really the tradition of Diodotus, who believed that justice and interest were compatible. 3/4
Read 7 tweets
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I have been battling a new health crisis since my surgery was postponed June 15.

There is no way to adequately articulate--even as a writer--the breadth of hardship inflicted on sick Americans by the Trump presidency & Trump-led #GOP, like lame-duck @SpeakerRyan.
#healthcare
1/
The @CDCgov cites 133M as the number of chronically-ill Americans who have #cancer, like I do, or another illness that impedes their daily lives.

The majority of that 40% of the US population still have to work despite often disabling illness because we cannot afford not to.
2/
I've been writing about #healthcare in America since I was a cub reporter and put on a small story in the mid-80s that turned into a much bigger story: #AIDS.

When you're in your 20s writing about other 20somethings dying, it changes you.

Then I got #breastcancer at 26.
3/
Read 19 tweets
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1) theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/06/21/stu… It has long been suspected; the footprints & fingerprints were always present; #McCain repeatedly denied it…. now the evidence surfaces.

For those who remember the issues when the IRS, White House & DOJ organized the post 2010 election “shellacking”
2) targeting of Tea Party groups, the latest discovery from Judicial watch is confirmation of a long-held opinion. John McCain was instrumental in supporting the weaponization of the IRS to target tea party groups.

WASHINGTON DC – […] In the full notes of an 4/30, 2013, mtg,
3) #McCain’s high-ranking staffer [Henry] Kerner recommends harassing non-profit groups until they are unable to continue operating. Kerner tells Lerner, Steve Miller, then chief of staff to IRS com., Nikole Flax, & other IRS officials, “Maybe the solution is to audit so many
Read 20 tweets

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