[Asia Times] The funeral service for the late senator John McCain, which was held at Washington’s National Cathedral on September 1, was notable not so much because of the 2,500 mourners in attendance but because of the conspicuous absence of US President Donald Trump.
The mourners paying their respects to the veteran conservative politician, who died on August 25 aged 81, included former US presidents Bill Clinton, George W Bush and Barack Obama, as well as Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos, comedian Jay Leno, former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, and former vice-presidents Dick Cheney and Al Gore. While the latter two were possibly as far apart politically as can be and ultimately represented the opposite bookends of the American political arena, they were still part of a political continuum that included the whole spectrum of the American power Establishment.
That Trump was absent from this assembly was not a passing trivial occurrence. Those that had assembled to pay their last respects to one of their own was the American political Establishment. Trump’s absence was simply a brazen reminder that he was not one of them. |