(CNN)Sen. John McCain’s heroism and code of honor, duty and unifying pragmatism will endure as a powerful historical example. But his political legacy met its match in President Donald Trump, who has prevailed in their struggle for the current soul of the GOP.
As the 2008 Republican presidential nominee leaves the stage, the trajectory of his party is ever more aligned with the worldview and combative attitudes of Trump, who electrified the party’s activist base in a way McCain could never manage.
There is no sign that grass-roots conservatives are about to return to the loftier, more traditional views embodied by McCain — even as he is being lauded in the political world as a paragon of self-sacrifice and patriotic service. It’s quite clear that the GOP base prefers Trump’s scorched earth politics and attacks on political institutions and traditions that McCain revered.
In primary races across the country, including in McCain’s Arizona, which goes to the polls on Tuesday, GOP candidates have been replicating the President’s style and insurgent narratives, forcing more moderate candidates to tack to the right to keep their campaigns alive.
Their behavior reflects the reality that Trump won the Republican nomination in 2016 largely because he was so unlike the Arizona senator and other more temperate Republicans, such as Florida’s Sen. Marco Rubio, or establishment scions such as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
In one final appeal, McCain delivered a last jab at Trump’s America First ideology, which has usurped his Ronald Reagan-style internationalism, in a farewell message read out by his former campaign manager Rick Davis on Monday.
“We weaken our greatness when we confuse our patriotism with tribal rivalries that have sown resentment and hatred and violence in all the corners of the globe,” McCain told his fellow Americans.
“We weaken it when we hide behind walls, rather than tear them down, when we doubt the power of our ideals, rather than trust them to be the great force for change they have always been.”
The depth of the antipathy between McCain and Trump played out as Washington got back to work for the first time since the passing of one of its most high-profile statesmen.
Three times on Monday, Trump crossed his arms, set his jaw and simply ignored questions from reporters about McCain’s…
