There is a less-heard third perspective on what went down in Lakeville on that Friday night. Why, some people asked, was McCain's instinctive, gut-level reaction that being a "decent family man" was the polar opposite of being "a Muslim"? Aren't most of the millions of American Muslims decent, family men and women? What if — imagine the thought — an actual Muslim ran for president in the nation that once embraced the world's refugees?

“He’s an Arab” “No ma’am, he’s a decent family man...” I genuinely don’t understand what is so inspiring about this moment. “He’s not Arab, he is a decent man” is not shutting down racism — it is racism. — Av Gutman (@abgutman) August 26, 2018

This is The America That Should Be But Never Was — the America that can never fully get past its McCain-like contradictions, that saved the American middle class with the Depression-era New Deal, as long as the middle class was white, and that defeated fascism during World War II even as it tossed thousands of Japanese-Americans into internment camps. There's something to be said for looking at the McCain Moment and wondering if — instead of a gauzy view of a lost America was there was more liberty and justice, but not for all – we can't do even better than that.

But in the present moment we're a long way away from that. I think a big reason why the 2008 McCain Moment got so much play with his passing is because — as much as we want to hold aloft the senator's decent response — we're even more mortified that the bad guys ultimately won. And with each passing day we're running out of good ideas for what to do about it.