This Trump/McCain business reminds me of something I posted many years ago

I can't stop thinking about an incident many many years ago in my practice which amazed me. I had posted on it way after the fact to prove a point but it bears repeating now methinks.

I had this guy, now deceased, who was a white guy, about 6'5", a Philadelphian by birth, who had at one time been a chef at one of the fancy Country Clubs on the Main Line. He was an Air Force veteran of low rank, had been on a first-name basis with his hero Barry Goldwater, and was as politically conservative an individual whom I've ever had the (dis)pleasure of consistently having to deal with in my life.

He was a practiced racist, bigot, and hater of all things foreign. He had failed at many good jobs because he could not work...rather WOULD not work with people, as he would call them, "of the black persuasion". His employment arc plummeted over the years and in his last job he was a school bus driver for the School District of Philadelphia and a telephone reservation individual for Amtrak. He let everyone know how much he despised people of color, leftists, foreign nationals, well, everyone to the left of George Wallace, who he thought, had not gone far enough and was a "chickenshit" especially at the end when he "renounced" his beliefs.

To my point: one day, McCain was in the news when he was running against Junior Bush. It might have been around the time that Rove and his minions were saying horrible things about McCain's family. This guy said to me, and I'm paraphrasing but not by much, "That scum McCain is no hero: he violated the Code of Military Conduct on multiple occasions and should have been court-martialed and shot. But they wouldn't do that because of his family history." So I asked him, "How did he violate it?" He replied, first, his duty when offered release was to go back immediately and report on the conditions of the POW camp and of the men held there. Second, he didn't withstand any torture: he just told them everything he knew right away."

Now I'm no fan of McCain AT ALL, but I said, "Hey, he didn't leave the men because perhaps he knew that his connection to top brass might help save their lives. And I'd start talking as would you immediately once they started on my fingernails or skin or whatever." He told me that was all bullshit and called him a "Traitor to the Flag and to the Service".

The hatred was palpable: this guy didn't talk about President Clinton with that venom. and that's when I realized how much hate these people carry around with them all the time. Frightening.