US elections: a six-word insult that caused Trump to lose the vital state of Arizona

Of the five states that went from Republican to Democrat in the presidential election, Arizona was the one that received the most astonishment from Donald Trump.

So much so, that when Fox News called Biden on election night, an irate member of Trump’s inner circle called the channel to demand that he revoke his screening.

Yesterday, more than a week later, both CNN and NBC confirmed that Trump had lost status. Trump’s team has now dropped all legal challenges to the outcome.

Arizona was the rusty red state that almost never turned blue. In the past seven decades, he became a Democrat in a presidential election only one other time.

Trump should have put up with it, as he did in North Carolina and Florida, but he blew it. And some have said it failed in Arizona due to a litany of unnecessary insults against one of the state’s favorite sons.

An attack on former Republican presidential candidate John McCain is seen by some in Arizona as an attack on the entire state.

The loss of Arizona “could be the revenge of John McCain,” former aide to Senator Mike Murphy said on the new MSNBC channel, while he was still on the air if the state would fall.

McCain’s widow, Cindy, released a statement after the statement saying that she was “proud of Arizona voters” and that Biden was a “man of honor” with whom she had been friends for 40 years.

He didn’t mention Trump by name at all. Rather, he said he hoped the president-elect could “heal the wounds caused by the outgoing administration.”

SIX WORDS THAT MADE TRUMP

McCain, who ran for president against Barack Obama in 2008, was a war hero who was imprisoned and tortured in Vietnam.

And it was a thorn in the side of President Trump.

He refused to endorse Trump during his 2016 presidential run, and his 2017 Senate vote torpedoed the administration’s plans to crack down on large swaths of President Obama’s health care reforms.

Trump was apoplectic with rage. “What he did to the Republican Party, to the nation and to sick people who could have had good health care was not good … I’m not a fan of John McCain, and that’s okay.”

But Trump had long made his feelings about McCain known, which shocked members of his own party, as well as voters in the senator’s home state.

In 2015, when his presidential career was still picking up pace, the television host prevailed on McCain’s war record.

“He is not a war hero,” he told supporters in Iowa.

“He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who were not captured.”

Trump was never caught while on duty. Because it never worked.

McCain was also a centrist Republican. He was in favor of LGBT rights and some gun controls and preferred consensus and pragmatism over blind allegiance to a party or president.

McCain died of brain cancer in 2018, at age 81. Former Presidents Obama, George W Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter attended. President Trump was not invited.

He issued a single concise tweet that sent his “deepest condolences and respect” without words to McCain himself.

At another monument in Phoenix, Arizona’s largest city, then-Vice President Biden took the lectern.

“My name is Joe Biden. I’m a Democrat. And I loved John McCain,” he told his audience.

Months after McCain’s death, Trump lashed out at the late senator four times in five days, even claiming he “did not receive a thank you” for allowing a state funeral.

But the cathedral that held the service said the funeral was not Trump’s approval, as McCain had never been president.

Republican Senator Johnny Isakson rebuked Trump at the time.

“It is deplorable what he said. We do not speak of our veterans in any way but to brag about them for the service they provide,” he said in a radio interview.

MCCAIN GAVE VOTERS PERMISSION TO GO DEM

Arizona’s loss to the Red Column cannot be entirely attributed to McCain.

New residents have arrived from more liberal states like California, while a significant number of those living in the Phoenix suburbs have turned away from Republicans, a phenomenon seen in other states.

In many ways, Arizona is simply aligning itself with the neighboring states of Nevada and New Mexico that have been gradually following the Democrats.

But McCain’s wife’s enthusiastic support for Biden, whom she endorsed in September, weighed heavily.

“When you try to get people who normally vote Republican to vote Democrats, or vice versa, a high-profile endorsement like Cindy McCain creates a permitting structure,” Rodd McLeod, a Democratic strategist from Arizona, told the site. Political web. .

McCain’s former chief of staff, Grant Woods, said Trump had to lose the state. And that he did with his unwarranted insults.

“Look how close this race was in Arizona. All you had to do was show a modicum of common sense and human decency toward an American hero. He probably would have won.”

After Biden got 11 votes from the Arizona Electoral College, Cindy McCain issued a statement apparently designed to push Trump’s buttons, particularly on the issue of voting irregularities.

“The poll workers are incredibly impressive. They have worked almost literally day and night for weeks, making sure Arizonans were able to vote and then carefully count each ballot.

“It took a bit of patience to reach the final conclusion. But it is a conclusion that we are absolutely sure is legitimate.”

He said Biden defined himself by his love for America and its troops “just like my husband, John.”

Finally, again without mentioning Trump’s name, he urged for a smooth transition.

“Of all the people, I know what it’s like to lose an election, so I sympathize with those who wish the election had turned out differently, but I remember John’s example in 2008 of accepting the voters’ decision and moving on to the next. challenge “.

Since the elections, a meme has been circulating on social media.

It just shows McCain smiling and the words “I like people who don’t lose Arizona.”