It will be a dark day when we run out of John McCains

They buried John S. McCain III less than a mile from the Naval Academy stadium where, 60 years ago, he graduated near the bottom in his class. Given that only flag officers and “distinguished graduates” may be interred in the Academy Cemetery overlooking the Severn River, Sunday’s full military honors were a dramatic turnaround from his being 894th of 899 in the class of 1958.

In the last fortnight, the conflicting, constantly shifting kaleidoscope of his life and personality have been reviewed and re-evaluated as the war hero and ex-senator completed phase two of the death process as formulated by neuroscientist and philosopher David Eagleman:

“There are three deaths,” Eagleman wrote in Sums: Forty Tales from the Afterlife. “The first is when the body ceases to function. The second is when the body is consigned to the grave. The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.”

For McCain, the final step could take quite a while, whether or not a Senate office building, naval base or spaceship is named after him. More important to America’s future, and to preserving his name, would be the development and wide adoption by all Americans, especially voters and candidates, of McCain’s attitude of political accommodation.

Even when he was wrong—and in the judgment of many Democrats and some Republicans that was often—he did those wrong things in the right way. Tradition, mannerliness, senatorial comity, determination, guts, volatility, candor and occasional sweetness or anger were mixed in him, underpinned by a foundational love of his country and its tradition of liberty under law.

This is not another post-funeral paean to a unique being; John McCain was hardly alone in possessing those virtues and flaws. And why should we mourn or worry when such complex, often irritating people die or leave public life? After all, governing effectively in these complex times is difficult enough without mavericks and compromisers cluttering up things.

But we must be very concerned because in our public life those independent, free-wheeling, dogged, unpredictable, McCain-like people are gradually being selected out, Darwinian style, and voters are doing the selecting.

With dozens of safe congressional districts and predictably Red and Blue states, the nation’s cultural, racial and ideological divides increasingly dictate that candidates of both parties try to “out-extreme” each other. Political scientist Alan Abramowitz chillingly demonstrates the growing gap between right and left absolutists (See “Two books all political partisans should read,” The Wichita Eagle, Aug. 21, 2018). One clear example: in 2012, 74 percent of Obama voters favored a more active role for government while 84 percent of Romney voters thought government was already doing too much. In 2016, that polarization index ticked up yet another notch or two.

Fueling the separations are narrow-interest groups — the NRA, the ACLU, etc. etc. — who relentlessly “score” congressional votes and distribute their money, authority and other support based on how rigorously each candidate hews to their specific policies.

To break through the wall of money and influence, a political newcomer must pick a side on every issue and pledge unflagging fealty to it (despite the fact that most issues have more than two sides). This, in turn, forces the incumbent or opponent into an even more extreme position.

That uncompromising behavior is then validated by inattentive voters who, seeking reinforcement of their conservative or liberal instincts, ignore moderate, multi-dimensional candidates whose willingness to compromise could help resolve many of the persistent problems we face.

When overwhelming percentages of voters equate compromise with surrender and value party or ideological identity over cooperative resolution, our political system is near to failing.

So was a 1958 Naval Academy graduate named John McCain. Remember him?

Davis Merritt, Wichita journalist and author, can be reached at dmerritt9@cox.net.