John McCain's Secret Daughter Doesn't Understand Mr. Rogers
Shocker
Fred Rogers considered everyone his neighbor. That would’ve included Meghan McCain — although she might’ve tested even his immense patience. Apropos of nothing, as Sheryl Crow would say, McCain capped off several days spent ranting about Democrats last week with this random observation.
Wanna know one of the best things about Mr. Rogers growing up? I never knew anything about his political opinions. He just entertained kids. That's it.
Perhaps it’s a dig at Ms. Rachel, the YouTuber with the controversial “no dead kids” opinions, but who really knows. As someone once told Al Bundy, “One gets to meet so few true fools.”
McCain is 41 and already demonstrates the problem, common in middle age, of recalling the past through the foggy cloud of nostalgia. She’s also a conservative, so regardless of age, she’s inclined to reject modernity as too permissive and inclusive. Everything was simpler and less complex when we were children, especially if our parents are wealthy and senators. True maturity requires that we accept and even embrace life’s complexity.
McCain’s comical ignorance is obvious when she suggests that Mr. Rogers “just entertained kids,” as if he dressed like a clown and sprayed seltzer at his co-host sidekick. A deeply religious man, Mr. Rogers believed he was ordained to serve children through television. Maybe McCain doesn’t consider that a “political opinion,” because she doesn’t find traditional religious faith controversial.
On May 1, 1969, Mr. Rogers testified before the United States Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Media in opposition to the Nixon administration’s proposed 50 percent reduction in federal funding for public broadcasting. That was also a political opinion; one might even describe it as advocacy. He pointedly did not describe his work as merely entertaining children while their mothers made dinner (it was the 1960s).
“This is what I give,” Mr. Rogers said. “I give an expression of care every day to each child, to help him realize that he is unique… I feel that if we in public television can only make it clear that feelings are mentionable and manageable, we will have done a great service for mental health.”
Mr. Rogers was a registered Republican, but he obviously wasn’t MAGA. He promoted empathy and understanding. His entire show was revolutionary for the period. Rogers didn’t talk down to children. He treated them as equals with emotions that were no less complex than adults’. That was a distinct contrast from the conventional wisdom of the time. When he spoke with children on his show or at home, he helped them work through their thoughts and feelings. When he visited the set of The Incredible Hulk TV series, he talked about how it was OK to feel angry at times. It happens to everyone. He also showed Lou Ferringo applying his makeup as the Hulk, so kids would understand that he wasn’t actually a monster. Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz, appeared on the show so that kids could confront their fears. No one was that scary if you actually got to know them.
The same month that Mr. Rogers testified before the Senate for more funding, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood aired an episode where he invited Black police officer Francois Clemmons to cool his feet with him in a plastic wading pool. They even shared a towel. But in 1969, just a few years after the Civil Rights Act, pools across the country were still refusing entrance to Black people. According to the Chicago Reporter, by the early 1970s, most of America’s urban amusement parks such as Cleveland’s Euclid Beach and Chicago’s Riverview were permanently closed. Many white patrons considered the newly integrated parks “unsafe” so stopped going (the park owners in turn sold the land for a profit). As white people fled cities for the suburbs — a phenomenon known as “white flight,” public swimming pools, bowling alleys and roller-skating rink were also shut down.
This led to what was termed “privatization” of once public resources. It ensured that white people wouldn’t have to share public spaces with anyone they found objectionable. Mr. Rogers openly defied this bigotry. He showed the children watching how to live without prejudice and fear. That was a deliberate political statement. (Mr. Clemmons was my actual next-door neighbor when I first moved to New York in 1996. He even invited me over for Thanksgiving dinner. My mother found this reassuring.)
Mr. Rogers was obviously not focused on entertaining kids when he directly addressed Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination in a half-hour primetime special. He challenged the assumption that children didn’t know what was happening. He understood that children had questions about death, especially through violence, and were strong enough to deal with the answers.
“I’ve been terribly concerned about the graphic display of violence which the mass media has been showing recently,” Mr. Rogers said. “And I plead for your protection and support of your young children. There is just so much that a very young child can take without its being overwhelming to him. ”
McCain has attached herself to a movement that confuses strength with cruelty and dominance. Mr. Rogers understood that true strength comes through empathy and caring for others, no matter their differences. In 1981, Mr. Rogers welcomed to his neighborhood 10-year-old Jeff Erlanger. When Jeff was only seven months old, he was diagnosed with a spinal tumor, and after the surgery required to remove it, he was a quadriplegic. Jeff appeared on the show in his electric wheelchair and sang with Mr. Rogers the classic song, “It’s You I Like.” Yes, Meghan McCain, that was also a political act. Mr. Rogers treated everyone as an equal worthy of respect and dignity. If his show aired today, McCain would condemn it as needlessly “woke.” She’d deny this, of course, but intellectual honesty is not a prominent trait of hers.
Mr. Rogers believed that “one of the greatest gifts you can give anybody is the gift of your honest self. I also believe that kids can spot a phony a mile away.” Even a small child could easily see through Meghan McCain — someone desperate for relevance who has achieved very little on her own merits. Mr. Rogers might have believed that McCain’s “honest self” is an actual gift, but I’m not that generous.
A brief personal story about Fred Rogers. My two children (now grown adults) loved Fred Rogers. My son Daniel (now 40) was about six years old when he was having a bad day. My wife suggested that he write a letter to Mr. Rogers. It was a typical child’s letter, nothing especially unique. We mailed it to his tv studio in Pittsburgh.
We received a return envelope from Pittsburgh about three weeks later. It included a photo of Mr. Rogers and some of the cast. But it also included a letter from him. And it wasn’t a form letter; it included specific references to Daniel’s letter!
I realized that he must have received hundreds (?) of letters like Daniel’s every week. And Daniel’s letter was not exceptional. That meant he was responding to all of the letters in this way.
I was so impressed that I called the tv studio in Pittsburgh the next day. I asked to speak with him and was connected to his assistant. I explained why I was calling and how overwhelmed I was that he would take the time to personally respond to my son’s letter. She answered by saying that Fred Rogers felt that the most important part of his job was to answer each one of the letters he received. He wanted every child to realize that he was a real person, not just a figure on a television screen.
Daniel has the letter framed. It’s on the wall in his den.
Meghan’s problem is obvious—Mr Roger’s was too subtle for her. Every political message of his went over her head.
“Sharing a kiddie pool with a black man? Well I’ve never done it, for some reason the only black people I see at Daddy’s country club are the wait staff and they’re not allowed in the pool, but ok when do we get to the Land of Make Believe?”
Once they actually see what Rogers was on about, they’d do their usual boycotting. Maybe it’s time we turned the right wing trope around and said you couldn’t make Mr Rogers Neighborhood today because kindness offends right wing dipshits.