The 80-year-old senator was recovering from a craniotomy in Arizona and reeling from the diagnosis of brain cancer, but duty called: He got on a plane and flew to the nation’s capital to appear on the Senate floor. A frail Senator John McCain entered the room yesterday afternoon to bipartisan applause, captivating the crowd with a rousing speech: “Make no mistake: My service here is the most important job I have had in my life.” And then he gave the Republican party an enormous win: He voted to open the debate on health care.

Meanwhile, protesters were arrested, journalists fought the Capitol Police for the right to record, President Donald Trump cheered on camera in the Rose Garden—all due to a 51–50 motion to proceed debating the Affordable Care Act, as if the Republican party hasn’t already been debating Obamacare all day every day since it passed in 2010. Hours later, the GOP’s plan to repeal the act, which was rushed to a vote by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (likely looking to capitalize on the party’s momentum) itself failed enormously, nabbing only 43 of the necessary 60 votes to overcome a parliamentary objection.

For all the attention he received, and all the drama he created by voting “yes” for beginning debate, McCain’s speech was in fact about why the latest Republican effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act was actually dead on arrival. “I will not vote for the bill as it is today. It’s a shell of a bill right now. We all know that,” he said. But do we?

It’s increasingly difficult to hold nihilism at bay under the sway of the Trump administration. He’s reigned over this nation for just six months, but every hour seems to bring fresh drama—whether it’s some Twitter gaffe or a terrifying executive order; whether he’s going back on his campaign promises, or making vague assertions that he is, in fact, effectively above the law. Just this week, the president attended a Boy Scout Jamboree in which critics likened his rousing, bizarre speech to a Hitler Youth rally. When an administration cares more about television ratings than its constituents, openly denies the patently obvious as partisan vitriol, and attempts to weaponize the Boy Scouts, it’s hard to understand what really matters anymore.