John McCain's Speech about "Spurious Nationalism"

Sen. John McCain, US Senate photo

Yesterday, speaking at the United States Constitution Center, United States Senator John McCain, a conservative Republican from Arizona, gave a speech accepting the Liberty Medal, which was presented by his long-time friend, Democratic Senator Joe Biden. Senator McCain talked about the first time he met Senator Biden, when McCain was still a young naval officer, and talked about the sacrifices of American service personnel during World War II. This led him to praise the international order that the United States built following that most terrible of wars. This led him to address national policy. He did not do so by offering detailed, fact-filled policy arguments, but by reminding the audience of the United States' values. This is the epideictic (ceremonial) speaker's classic method: he praised people who are obviously praiseworthy, and advised the audience to learn from them.

Here is an example of the epideictic praise that McCain delivered during the speech:


We are living in the land of the free, the land where anything is possible, the land of the immigrant’s dream, the land with the storied past forgotten in the rush to the imagined future, the land that repairs and reinvents itself, the land where a person can escape the consequences of a self-centered youth and know the satisfaction of sacrificing for an ideal, the land where you can go from aimless rebellion to a noble cause, and from the bottom of your class to your party’s nomination for president. 


He then explained how world stability, marked by justice and prosperity, was made possible by American leadership:



We are blessed, and we have been a blessing to humanity in turn. The international order we helped build from the ashes of world war, and that we defend to this day, has liberated more people from tyranny and poverty than ever before in history. This wondrous land has shared its treasures and ideals and shed the blood of its finest patriots to help make another, better world. 

Pearl Harbor Memorial, US Navy photo

This led him, by relentless but unspoken logic, to reject nationalistic policies: "We live in a land made of ideals, not blood and soil. We are the custodians of those ideals at home, and their champion abroad." He then criticized unnamed persons who spoke for "half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems." He thought that this was "as unpatriotic as an attachment to any other tired dogma of the past that Americans consigned to the ash heap of history." Senator McCain talked about how World War II veteran George H. W. Bush came to the verge of tears when he spoke at the Pearl Harbor Memorial.

Although Senator McCain did not name names, it is obvious that he was thinking about President Donald Trump's "America First" policy, or the jingoist nationalism that alt-right leader Steve Bannon advocated the other day at the Values Voters Summit. By not naming names, Senator McCain elevated his talk above the kind of crass partisanship that Bannon's speech expressed.

Senator McCain was in a particular position to speak frankly, since he suffers from terrible health problems and will not run for reelection. McCain, however, has always been willing to speak his mind. Some of the things that he said in the past seemed outrageous to me, but, in this case, he was spot-on.

On a side note, Donald Trump said terrible things about Senator McCain during the 2016 election campaign. Did Mr. Trump really expect McCain to knuckle under and not respond? Senator McCain's speech yesterday was a remarkable response: dignified, on-the-point, and inarguable. He made his response without criticizing anyone, without giving detailed arguments, and without rancor, but merely by reminding his audience about the values that Americans fought for.

On a larger note, conservatism is supposed to be about preserving American values. Many people who call themselves conservatives today, especially those who are loudest and most forceful, not only reject but stomp upon the past's hard-learned lessons. Thank you, Senator McCain, for reminding us about them.

Note: epideictic speakers often use methods similar to Senator McCain's. Here are a few of my earlier posts on that same rhetorical theme:

Hillary Clinton speaking about women and girls

Singer Pink and the Power of Pearls

President Trump Awards a Medal of Honor