Not only won't McCain apologize for insulting patriotic Americans, but now he maintains that "crazies" is a "term of endearment and affection."

John McCain is standing by his remarks to the New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza that Donald Trump’s visit to Phoenix last week was “very hurtful to me because what he did was he fired up the crazies.” Trump has demanded an apology to his supporters.

McCain's disdain toward conservative Tea Party people is no secret. Far from being a term of endearment, calling conservatives “crazies” represents John McCain’s true feelings.

Establishment Republicans, Democrats, the biased liberal media, and entertainers have used the word to define regular, hardworking, tax-paying conservatives for years. In 2008, then-senator Obama rounded up social conservatives in one stereotyped swoop, referring to them as bitter religion and gun clingers. It wasn't long after Obama won the presidency that conservatives were labeled “nutjobs” and “crazy.” In 2010 the Internal Revenue Service began scrutinizing the tax-exempt status of Tea Party groups.

In a November 2012 e-mail, former director of the IRS’s Exempt Organization Unit Lois Lerner used the C-word, suggesting that conservatives are more violent than jihadists.

We don't need to worry about alien teRrorists. It's our own crazies that will take us down.

This past May, Bill Maher told his HBO audience that "in the Republican Party 'crazy' is a constituency."

In December 2014, GOP pollster Ed Goeas said this about the field of candidates coming into the Senate:

In state after state after state we nominated the right person. We did not nominate any crazies...The more the country sees the quality of that class, the more people like Ted Cruz are going to fade into the background.

With this kind of vitriol aimed at conservatives, GOP presidential hopefuls immediately distanced themselves from Trump lest they be called crazy, too. Marco Rubio, Rick Perry, Scott Walker, Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie, and Jeb Bush all attacked Donald Trump for his comments on John McCain’s war hero status. The candidates tripped over each other’s tweets on Saturday calling out Trump’s “offensive, disqualifying” retort to pollster Frank Luntz’s questions.

Trump didn't like McCain's swipe at his supporters, and unlike his fellow GOP contenders, he came out swinging. Voters need to ask themselves: if this is how Republican candidates defend hardworking Americans before they become commanders-in-chief, imagine how we will fare if any one of them is elected. As one AT commenter suggested, "silence is affirmation." Their allegiance to McCain instead of the people speaks volumes.

Read more Evans @exzoom.net.

Hat tip: Paul Vincent Zecchino