Trump lovers gang up on high-profile freshman GOP congressman for asking the president to lay off John McCain

Sen. John McCain has been dead for seven months. The Arizona senator, Vietnam veteran and self-described “Goldwater Republican” was 81 when he died of brain cancer on August 25, 2018. Yet President Donald J. Trump continues to be obsessed with him, declaring during a speech earlier this week, “I wasn’t a fan of John McCain.” In response, Rep. Dan Crenshaw called Trump out on Twitter, posting, “Mr. President, seriously stop talking about Senator McCain”—and the Texas Republican is being angrily attacked for it by Trump supporters.

As right-wing as McCain was, many figures in the far-right media—from Rush Limbaugh to Ann Coulter—have a long history of denouncing him as a RINO (Republican In Name Only). And the silly notion that McCain wasn’t genuinely right-wing asserted itself in many of the comments attacking Crenshaw on Twitter.

Twitter user CC, who has 286,000 followers on the social media website and has said that her “top priority” on Twitter is “to retweet President Trump’s tweets,” responded to Crenshaw by asserting that “John McCain’s actions were traitorous” and that his opposition to Trump was “vindictive” and “un-American.”

@TheReady1775 was especially venomous, declaring that McCain was “a piece of shit” because he “died a traitor working for Dems.” And @TheReady1775 threatened that Crenshaw could “be a one-term wonder” if he decides to “go RINO on us.”

California-based Trump devotee @steph93065 urged Crenshaw to “shut your damn mouth” about Trump and cited him as an example of “the entire establishment” and “their media…. trashing our president.”

A Trump supporter in Los Angeles, @almostjingo, posted, “Mr. Crenshaw, when did you become the ruler of free speech?” And @1AmericanMama, a Trump supporter in Missouri, posted:

The pro-Trump @nelliestirs described McCain as a “vile human being” who “took his hatred” of Trump “to his grave.” And @mystormee insisted that “McCain took every opportunity to stab the American citizen in the back,” while @LoriS09598635 posted that Crenshaw “is looking to be like other Washington elite RINOs ....Romney, McConnell, Ryan, Flake, McCain, Rubio, Hurd, Amash.”

But not all of the conservatives who responded to Crenshaw’s tweet were unfavorable. @LouiseMensch posted, “I like Crenshaw a hell of a lot…. when Mueller has arrested all the traitors infesting the GOP leadership, and I can go back to being a regular person with domestic political views, Crenshaw is the kind of leader I would support in a Presidential primary.”