New Republic writer scorches pro-McCain elites who paved way for Trump’s bigotry with GOP’s ‘Southern Strategy’

Jeet Heer, a staff writer for the New Republic, over the weekend took issue with so-called "elites" who have praised Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) stance against President Donald Trump without taking responsibility for helping to create his style of politics.

In a Saturday evening rant on Twitter, Heer said that the eulogies slamming Trump at McCain's funeral "reflected the weakness of a certain type of politics, Decency Resistance."

"The overriding message of the funeral was to contrast, by barely disguised subtweets, McCain's decency & patriotism with Trump's squalor, selfishness & bigotry," he wrote. "The problem with the staging of the funeral is that it was designed to draw a contrast between the old establishment (bipartisanly embodied by Bush & Obama) with the off-stage Trump. But that's false dichotomy. That old establishment created Trump."

"As I've been arguing for the last 3 years, Trump wasn't created out of an immaculate conception but is the true heir to generations of bad politics, notably GOP 'Southern Strategy' of race-baiting," Heer continued. "McCain himself illustrates the true complex dichotomy here: yes, he stood up to Trump & offered an alternative nationalism. But McCain, by picking Palin & also fostering conspiracy theories about ACORN, helped pave the way for Trump."

Heer went on to posit, "Beyond the Southern Strategy & Palin, think of all the other elite choices that led to Trump: the lies of the Iraq war, the mainstreaming of Islamophobia, the casino economics that led to the 2008 meltdown, Obama's failure to prosecute bankers."

"We've had decades of elite failure, elite impunity, and elite coddling of racism, elite promotion of anti-intellectualism (think of climate denial). Are we surprised that the end result is President Trump?" Heer asked. "The American elite really thinks they can subtweet their way out of a fascist crisis. It's not so easy, my friends."

Read all of Heer's tweets below.