Thank You Senator McCain

January 24, 2037

A letter looking back on a great day in American History:

Dear Senator McCain,

Thank you. Thank you for restoring the Republic. Thank you for saving our nation from a fall only rivaled by that of the Roman Empire. It was not until a generation later that we realized that you, not a President, not a Speaker of the House, not a Senate Majority Leader, but you, a man of principle, decided that he had endured enough. You are the man who endured a stay at the Hanoi Hilton and survived that tenure of torture; however, as you stared death in the face in the form of brain cancer, it was the machinations of Congress that were too much to take.

Let us venture back to July of 2017. Congress had been failing the nation for well over a decade. Congressional popularity was about on par with a bad case of herpes. You had given in and caved to the special interests pulling one over on the U.S. in your attempts to ascend to the Presidency. In the years that followed, the Maverick that was Senator McCain and the Presidential candidate that was also Senator McCain pushed and pulled. But it was not until a cancer diagnosis that you realized that you were put on this Earth to help people. It had nothing to do with the actual legislation that was to be voted on. It had everything to do with a man walking across the aisle, both physically and metaphorically, to break down the wall that had been burdening one of the greatest institutions in political history.

Senator McCain, you did not know what your future would hold but you did know that you did not want your legacy to be one wherein history looked back on you as one of the Republicans who fell in line. You didn’t want history looking back on you as one of the Senators who kissed Donald Trump’s ring. You didn’t want history to look back on you as a Senator who chose party over country. Senator McCain, you may not have known what the way forward was, but you were tired of going backward.

So it was then, on July 27, 2017 or July 28, 2017, depending on which coast you were on, Senator McCain, that you stopped Washington D.C. from going backward and led the way forward. The old normal wherein Democrats and Republicans refused to work together on anything other than raising your salaries was finally over. Senator McCain, you returned the Senate to a time when both parties owned major pieces of legislation that would affect the lives of the majority of Americans. It was not about getting re-elected but rather about doing what should get a Senator re-elected: representing one’, s constituents.

Our Senate and House of Representatives in concert with the Executive and Judicial branches of government ARE what make America great. Conservatives and liberals arguing and eventually coming to compromises are what propelled the United States to become the leader of the world, both in concept and reality.

We were well on the way to letting our own hubris kill us, just as hubris killed every other empire in history. But on one night, Senator McCain, you made it clear that hubris would not win the day. We must work to be great. We must walk the walk of a representative democracy. Senator McCain, you saved a great nation from itself. You did something beyond difficult for your political persona for the benefit of the Senate you embodied and the nation you loved. The personal sacrifice you made in such a personally difficult time once again showed us what makes this nation great: The drive to serve the greater good.

Thank you Senator McCain for being the one man of decency in a land that forgot what that word meant. Thank you for bringing the decency out of others who may not have had your courage. Thank you for setting an example for the rest of us. Your legacy will define a generation and we of that generation are grateful.

Thank you,

A United States Citizen