The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Happy Thanksgiving to All!

Posted on | November 28, 2024 | No Comments

We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing;
He chastens and hastens His will to make known;
the wicked oppressing now cease from distressing.
Sing praises to His name, He forgets not His own.

What a wonderful holiday! Turkey and dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, sweet potato souffle, pecan pie — we’re living the good life here at the McCain homestead. Half of our children and one-third of our grandchildren will be among those gathered around the table for this afternoon’s feast. Our eldest daughter is with her family in Florida, our Army son with his family in Alaska, and third-year law student Jefferson is with his girlfriend’s family in Michigan. Despite the fact that not all our offspring will be here for Thanksgiving this year, we are nonetheless grateful for the many blessings we do enjoy. And we will try not to grumble about such misfortunes as today’s pro football schedule, with the NFL serving up such turkeys as the Giants (2-9) versus the Cowboys (4-7). We understand that the league officials in charge of scheduling could not have predicted how bad those teams would be. The Cowboys were coming off a 13-win season last year, but now they’ve completely collapsed and the Giants are so awful they cut their former “franchise” quarterback and will now be starting Tommy DeVito.

Probably most readers don’t care about the NFL, and you came here expecting some kind of political commentary. Well, how about Kamala as your alcoholic aunt rambling incoherently at Thanksgiving?

We can afford to laugh at that, as we give thanks that our nation has been spared from the Kamala Harris presidency. By the way, do you know how the second verse of that Thanksgiving hymn goes?

Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining,
ordaining, maintaining His kingdom divine;
so from the beginning the fight we were winning:
the Lord was at our side — the glory be Thine!

“From the beginning the fight we were winning” — pardon me for employing that phrase in a mere secular context, but it is appropriate to the recent political campaign. Our friend Dana Pico calls attention to a confession from senior Harris campaign advisor David Plouffe:

Plouffe said the campaign’s internal polling never had Harris ahead of Trump.
“We didn’t get the breaks we needed on Election Day,” he said. “I think it surprised people, because there was these public polls that came out in late September, early October, showing us with leads that we never saw.”

Because I never talk about my day job, I can’t tell you exactly how much vindication that confession gives me, but it’s a whole lot. Do you remember what the polls looked like in September? Harris was ahead by four points, said CBS News. No, wait, she was ahead by five points according to NBC News. And then Reuters said, “Hold me beer — Harris is ahead by six points!” Those polls were all bullshit, and I knew they were bullshit at the time, but it’s nice to have the confirmation from a senior advisor to Harris that even they knew those polls were bullshit.

Harris was never ahead of Trump, whose victory was a sure thing all along — “from the beginning the fight we were winning.” As to why this should have been so, I don’t want to get too theological:

For generations, American school children learned the story of the First Thanksgiving as having been celebrated by the Pilgrims of New England at Plymouth. Vaguely I recall being a kindergartner, with a feathered Indian headdress (actually made of construction paper) and participating in a Thanksgiving pageant in which the Pilgrims wore black hats (also made of construction paper), relating the tale of how the English colonists had learned from the natives how to plant corn, thus ensuring the survival of the settlement. Public schools in Georgia did not yet offer kindergarten, so we attended the one at Austell Methodist Church, with Mrs. Bookout as our teacher, and the religious significance of Thanksgiving was emphasized.
As familiar as the tale of that first Thanksgiving in Massachusetts is to most Americans, it was not actually the first Thanksgiving in America. That honor belongs to Virginia, where the Good Ship Margaret arrived from England in 1619 carrying 37 men who settled at Berkeley Plantation. These men were Anglicans, not Puritans, but their two-and-half-month trans-Atlantic voyage had been perilous, beset by storms, and during their journey they had earnestly prayed to God for their safety. . . .

You can read the rest of my latest Substack article, and while you’re there, please sign up for a free subscription. Thanks, and may God bless you.



 

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Category: History, Religion, Virginia

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