I celebrated Jeff Flake’s denunciation of Trump. Some readers said we should not compliment Flake because he is a conservative, he voted for almost every Republican Proposal, his policies are no better than Trump’s.
Then I read this article that articulated what I believe and said it better than I did. Democracy establishes ground rules for discussion, debate, and disagreement. Democracy means battling for your ideas in the marketplace of public opinion. Democracies do not threaten to jail the candidates who lose. Presidents (in the past) do not sneer at those with whom they disagree, do not belittle them, do not demean them, do not taunt and smear those who do not grovel at their feet.
“It’s easy to roll your eyes at Republicans. Besides their run-of-the-mill odious policies which would starve the poor and oppress anyone who isn’t straight and white and male, they nominated Donald Trump. Then, when he continually proved himself unfit for office, they either remained silent or defended him. Many still do.
“But now a few brave souls are speaking up, and whether those of us in the resistance like it or not, we need them.
“The latest Republican to speak out is Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona, who, in an impassioned speech on the Senate floor, announced he would not be seeking re-election in 2018.
“Politics can make us silent when we should speak, and silence can equal complicity,” Flake said. “I have children and grandchildren to answer to, and so, Mr President, I will not be complicit.”
“Hear. Bloody. Hear…
“Democracy is a contest of ideas, but that contest only works if we agree on the rules beforehand. Trump violates the basic norms of American democracy, degrading them to a point of no return.
“He threatens the media, questioning whether networks critical of him should have their licences revoked. He embraces fringe elements (such as neo-Nazis) and normalises their attacks on our multicultural society. He defines patriotism not as a defence of the ideals our country aspires to, but as a racial and cultural purity test. He freely threatens nuclear war on social media. And don’t forget, he campaigned on locking his political opponent up.
“These aren’t American ideals. They’re authoritarian tactics.
“The danger of Trump isn’t that he’ll cut taxes for the wealthy, or fail to pass gun control, or roll back some civil rights protections for LGBT people. Any Republican president would do the same, and that’s something the American left would have to fight no matter which GOP candidate had won the White House.
“Even if Trump is defeated in 2020, we’ll have to fight these same battles the next time we have a Republican president. That sucks, but it’s not the same as having a proto-fascist as president. After all, if Trump succeeds in destroying our democracy, we’ll have no chance of winning any future progressive battles. That’s the whole point of fascism.
“Trump presents a unique risk to our country, to civil discourse, to the American experiment, which has existed since 1788 when the Constitution was ratified. We’re not fighting for a progressive agenda right now. We’re fighting for the soul of America and the continued existence of democracy on these shores.”
I disagree with Jeff Flake on every issue, every policy. But I admire him for standing up to Trump and denouncing his attack on democracy itself.
Read on.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“…”and so, Mr President, I will not be complicit.”
But this is exactly what we’re arguing. Flake has been and is complicit. By supporting Trump’s policies, even if he doesn’t support how Trump behaves, he is complicit. Flake is only arguing style. But the substance is what creates the style. As long as we have barbaric policies, we will have barbaric politicians. Trump is just the first to truly match style with substance.
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My instinct was to applaud Flake, and I still think the world is better for what he said than it would be if he hadn’t said it. But your comments today on this issue have been fantastic, and I think you’ve changed my mind.
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Thanks. Coming from you, that means a lot.
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What, from the “defender of Success Academy”?
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😉
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Yes, I agree. I’ve had my disagreements with Dienne in the past, but her arguments sum up my views on this issue as well. Signing out of this discussion.
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Talk is cheap but his speech rings hollow in my ears. Nice speech. Glad someone had the chutzpah to say what was said. Trump got a hand slapping from a nobody Senator is all that this was. Tomorrow will be another Trump Twitter storm aimed at someone/something else. Just words and no justice.
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I agree with you 100%. Last night Flake voted to rescend every American’s right to sue banks and other financial institutions including credit reporting agencies like Equifax. These financial institutions can do whatever they wish to us. We have little to no recourse when they charge us extraneous fees, fail to protect our personal data, and charge us for other people’s mistakes like a fee when someone else writes us a bad check.
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You have just reminded me why I Better stick to education, not matters of state. Trump is turning everyone vicious.
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Diane,
Thank you for posting this. Please don’t be swayed by the idea that Jeff Flake’s extreme right wing position on every policy is in any way relevant to the point he made.
His point is that regardless of how right wing or left wing you are, you need to respect the institution of democracy. And while we have a very imperfect democracy, it is not and has not yet become fascism.
I wonder if the progressives here would embrace someone who acted the exact same way as Trump did, except he defied democratic values to promote a progressive agenda. Imagine our own “progressive” Trump lying through his teeth, demanding we lock up Republicans for invented crimes, quashing any investigations into his corrupt practices enriching his own family’s businesses, and attacking progressive members of his own party who didn’t agree with him 100% of the time and agree that his lies were the truth. Imagine our own “progressive” Trump flouting every democratic norm and expecting every untruth to be confirmed by his cabinet and party.
Imagine if that “progressive” Trump passed universal health care, enacted a progressive tax system and reinstated an inheritance tax in which estates over $1,000,000 were heavily taxes.
Would we all look the other way?
Or would we be like Jeff Flake and call out the danger?
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Diane,
Please post what you think is important. Flake’s speech was a surprise to me, despite his actions to support the DUMP agenda. We need to know this kind of information.
Thank you for all you do.
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Thank you, Yvonne.
I think it helps when conservative Republicans speak out against Trump. But I fear the Republican Party is now the party of Trump. Racist, stupid, dishonest, intent on robbing the poor and the middle class to enrich the 1%
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I disagree that Flake is arguing “style”. And I disagree that the substance is what creates the style.
I just do not understand the argument that the only difference between Trump and Reagan is about style. The difference between Trump and Reagan is about whether they think it is perfectly acceptable to lock up anyone who disagrees with them. And that’s not style. That’s the norms of democracy.
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The difference between those 2 men is that one man, while being deluded by his ideology and going senile, was a good man, the other is a low-life ignoramus, a nasty human being who should not be allowed to be a dog catcher.
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A cogent rebuttal: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/why-jeff-flakes-anti-trump-speech-was-meaningless-w510175?utm_source=rsnewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=daily&utm_campaign=102517_15
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Another interesting perspective:
https://www.alternet.org/election-2016/trump-demagogue-dangerously-close-white-house
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I would have more admiration for the speaker if far more Republicans and Democrats would make the same points AND act on legislation to stop the deliberate and selective “deconstruction of the administrative state” for the benefit of the rich and powerful who demand entitlements and corporate welfare.
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I appreciate the people standing up to Trump.
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I find myself caught between wanting to agree with what you have suggested about the marketplace of ideas and fearing that there is no more marketplace. When I was young, the only kind of bread you could buy was white bread. It was not worth eating. As I grew up, supermarkets began to carry alternative breads that were more nutritious and tasted good to me.
As we have moved toward a greater variety of breads in the store, we have moved toward white bread politics. Somehow, Flake should have known that he was making a deal with the devil. I applaud his statements now, but look to people like Flake to give the unemployed worker something besides the white bread of globalism and free trade. Perhaps he and George Bush will bring in a Republican Party that will find a way to make all of this work for the people. But it sounds like white bread to me.
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It’s not enough for true progressives to applaud a member of Congress who criticizes an obviously unfit, deranged person such as Trump. True progressives cannot EVER support imperialism, which is the foreign policy of the United States, supported by most Democrats, Republicans, and even Independents such as Bernie Sanders.
Until the bloated imperial budget is scaled back to a truly defensive budget, there will never be enough funds for schools, health care, infrastructure, housing, or living-wage jobs for all (at least as long as Modern Monetary Theory is not accepted by the mainstream).
The U.S. is currently waging war on Afghanistan, Chad, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Niger, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen. It threatens war on Iran and North Korea, as well as militarily provoking China and Russia. It is about to put its B-52 nuclear bombers back on 24-hour alert, which had been ended when the USSR collapsed in 1991. It currently deploys “Special Operations” teams in more than 130 countries. It has nuclear-armed fleets of warships on and under most of the earth’s oceans. It has more than 700 military bases in more than 80 nations. Its military budget is more than 40% of the entire world’s military budgets.
Are we safer? More secure?
The most decorated U.S. Marine, Major-General Smedley D. Butler, had it right when he wrote, in 1935, “War Is A Racket”. Perpetual wars mean perpetual profits for the war profiteers and their eager, willing servants in Congress, but death and destruction for countless millions, and the cutting of needed social programs so the voracious military beast can continue to be fed.
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No, Ed, it is not enough. But it is important to stand up to a deranged bully who is threatening nuclear war.
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Totally agree Ed!
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I loved what Flake said about the integrity of the person who has the position of the President, of the US, but this ‘flake’ who claimed to be deficit hawk when there was a democrat int he White House, voted for the tax bill that will put a 2 TRILLION dollar hole in our deficit, while enriching the wealthiest people, and sticking it to the middle class, which is nearing poverty levels, as this important video shows: WATCH THE WHOLE THING, THE LAST CHART SHOWS THE FOLKS THAT HE LOVES. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM
Can you spell HYPOCRITE?
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Now see this:
FOCUS: Here’s What Happened Among Republicans a Few Hours After Jeff Flake’s Speech http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/46491-focus-heres-what-happened-among-republicans-a-few-hours-after-jeff-flakes-speech
They serve their Wall Street/Bankster Masters very well, regardless of their pious rhetoric.
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The Republicans have ALWAYS served their Wall Street masters.
What is different now is that if we no longer have a democracy, we no longer have any means to fight them.
Jeff Flake wants almost all the same things as Trump. The only difference is that Flake understands what destroying democracy is a suicidal way to achieve them.
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Regardless of Flake’s past sins, and they are legion, I am still glad he spoke out against Trump. Better now than never.
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Diane,
Thank for this link which does explain clearly what the issue is.
Somehow, there are still some progressives who can’t distinguish between disagreeing on policy and disagreeing about the rules of democracy.
It is Theresa May versus Putin. It doesn’t matter whether their policies are exactly the same (and I know that they aren’t). It is about whether they agree that democratic institutions are necessary.
You can agree with Trump 99% on policy, as Flake and Corker basically do, and understand that he is dangerous.
“Democracy is a contest of ideas, but that contest only works if we agree on the rules beforehand. Trump violates the basic norms of American democracy, degrading them to a point of no return.”
“Even if Trump is defeated in 2020, we’ll have to fight these same battles the next time we have a Republican president. That sucks, but it’s not the same as having a proto-fascist as president. After all, if Trump succeeds in destroying our democracy, we’ll have no chance of winning any future progressive battles. That’s the whole point of fascism.
Trump presents a unique risk to our country, to civil discourse, to the American experiment, which has existed since 1788 when the Constitution was ratified. We’re not fighting for a progressive agenda right now. We’re fighting for the soul of America and the continued existence of democracy on these shores.”
Progressive Americans used to know this. We used to understand that even if a politician fights for the most progressive ideas, if that politician is a demagogue who insists on locking up anyone who disagrees with progressive ideas, then he should NOT be elected. He is dangerous. He is fascist. And once you accept fascism as okay because it is getting you something you want, you have destroyed democracy.
I understand why Republicans will look the other way because they are getting what they want. It’s important when one or two lone voices call out how dangerous it is.
But I will never understand how some progressives can dismiss the danger.
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I am glad Flake said what he said even if I am diametrically opposed to his own politics. At the end of the day, if porky pig gave that speech, I’d be glad. Trump needs to be called out for who he is… period. Yes, I am glad it’s coming from a member of his own party. Yes it’s convenient Flake is not running for election. It may be considered for sure cowardly and downright anti -democratic for republicans in office with aspirations to stay in office… not to speak out. For god’s sake our democracy is at stake! Flake spoke beautifully. My hope is that he awoke a sleeping giant- all those who voted for Trump who are regretting tthat vote. Whether they vote republican or democratic in the future is not the issue. What is the issue is the need for politicians to value and demand loyalty to democratic principles and to hold elected officials to a much higher standard at all levels of political life! I don’t put Flake in any “hero ” status at all as he likely wants. He should have spoke out when he planned to stay in the senate because that is what a noble politician should have done!! But I’m still glad for his speech. I am hopeful we are better off for it if it gets both parties aware that we cannot continue to have a president who tweets about nuclear war … or alludes to it or who calls a former POW a loser because he got caught ( yes… Trump said this about McCain).
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It needed to be said…by Ryan, and McConnel!
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“H
eair. Bloody. Heair. ”Fixed.
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“Hair. Bloody. Hair”
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Perhaps this is the beginning of a push to get rid of the Trumpster and have Pence takeover. Be wary of that scenario.
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Oh god no! We don’t need a President Pence….although I think all of this policy stuff is coming from Pence (via Koch, Mercer, Bannon) and he’s just using the orange ape to keep everyone distracted. Pence has a cool and calculating demeanor that terrifies me.
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His words against Repub. Senators who voted no on the budget/health care have been no less viscous and demeaning than Trump’s.
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The fact that Flake is willing to sound the alarm is good. That’s not an endorsement of his libertarian anti-government policies. Rather it’s acknowledging that on the central issue of the danger Trump poses, Flake broke ranks.
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This. Thank you.
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Frederick Douglass indicated that, as a slave, he had more respect for his brutal owners and overseers than he did for those who were “nice” to him. The “nice” ones were weak men who couldn’t/wouldn’t admit to the bargain they’d made by owning human beings. They thought they could own human beings and still retain their own humanity. Douglass knew how wrong they were, no matter how “nice” they were. The brutal ones, on the other hand, understood perfectly well the bargain they’d made – they’d given up their humanity in exchange for financially profiting off other humanity. They knew that made them brutes, not men. Douglass appreciated dealing honestly, brute to brute, rather than trying to pretend to be dealing with a “gentleman”. There were no Southern gentlemen.
Trump is just another who understands the bargain he’s made. He has profited off myriad forms of human suffering – as has America itself. The differences is that past leaders have tried to be “nice” about it and pretend to be “gentlemen”. Trump doesn’t bother to pretend.
Your mileage may vary, but personally I’m sick of “nice” when it only masks evil and placates the rebellion that would otherwise form. Let Trump be as brutal and outrageous and offensive as he wants to be. Let’s finally see the truth that’s always been behind the “nice”. Then let us see ourselves for who we are and decide what we’re going to do about it. Are we going to remain brutes? Or are we going to genuinely work for humanity? Supporting the “nice” Democrats (and some “nice” Republicans) who destroy other countries and impoverish Americans for the gain of the 1% while saying nice things is not working for humanity. It’s just lipstick on the brute.
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Like!
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I’m sick of nice, too. I’ve never been a big fan of “nice” unless it is accompanied with honesty and decency.
But I’m not sick of democracy.
I don’t see anyone here commenting that Flake is “nice”. I don’t think he is nice at all. That feels like a straw man argument.
Flake recognizes the importance of democratic norms. Trump does not. Neither of them seem particularly concerned with the human condition, per se.
What good is it to argue that a brutal slave master is better than a nice one? If there is no longer any democratic means to repeal it?
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Flake doesn’t give a rat’s patoot for “democratic norms”. He wants the “free market” to rule, not people. He just wants to be “nicer” about it, which is my whole point. We haven’t had democracy in a very long time, but people haven’t noticed because politicians have been “nice” about it, using their pretty, noble words. What people like Flake don’t like about Trump isn’t his lack of “democratic norms”, it’s the fact that his blatant odiousness makes the lack of “democratic norms” obvious and it’s making the plebes restless.
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“We haven’t had democracy in a very long time, but people haven’t noticed because politicians have been “nice” about it…”
What a truly helpful thing to say. Why should anyone bother to vote anyway?
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Incidentally, the neoliberal argument basically goes like, since there’s nothing Douglass could do about being a slave, he might as well enjoy having “nice” owners and overseers to make his condition – inescapable as it was – as comfortable as possible. Just accept your lot in life, Douglass, you were born to be a slave, so get used to it and find what comfort you can. We, your overseers, don’t want to hurt you, after all.
Finally people are starting to wake up and reject that argument, as did Douglass. What divine force says we have to be slaves? Excuse the language, but eff that. The hell with “nice” and let’s work to all be free.
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Which “neoliberals” say that nasty and racist thing? You have a lot of chutzpah to complain about me when you say things like this all the time that smear “neoliberals”.
“neoliberals” and “democrats” say that we need democracy so we can vote to change things.
People like you tell voters that there IS no democracy anymore. Why do you expect anyone to vote when you make it clear that there is no democracy anyway?
You can’t have change when you keep telling people that there is no point in voting because we HAVE no democracy.
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Sorry, late to the party on this one. Clearly you have no idea what neoliberalism is. No, neoliberals do not say we need democracy. Democracy is antithetical to market rule, which is what neoliberalism is. Please educate yourself before you rant at me next time.
Incidentally, I challenge you to find one – just one – post where I’ve ever said people shouldn’t vote. I’ll wait. Either find it or retract that statement, please.
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dienne77,
I admit that there are many definitions of neoliberals. Charles Peters, editor of the Washington Monthly used to be called a neoliberal. Bill Clinton was called one. None of them seem to be pro-slavery or pro-just accept your lot in life. While a don’t agree with them, I think neoliberalism was not about slaves accepting their condition. Or about anyone being born to their lot in life.
I was absolutely wrong to use the general “you” in my last sentence because you are correct that the sentence does (wrongly) say “you” keep telling people that there is no point in voting.
I retract that very poorly written and 100% wrong sentence.
My concern is if progressives keep insisting that we don’t have democracy, they are not providing any incentive for people to vote. Why would anyone vote if they accept your statement that:
“We haven’t had democracy in a very long time, but people haven’t noticed because politicians have been “nice” about it, using their pretty, noble words….”
If we don’t have democracy, what is the point of voting? That’s what I don’t understand. If people believe what you just wrote, why should they bother to vote?
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Again, no, NYCPSP, there are not many definitions of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism is a form of “liberalism” in the spirit of Adam Smith or John Locke which favors “free market” capitalism over all else in all human arenas. While it’s not about chattel slavery as practiced in the antebellum South, it is about turning humans into slaves to capital. One of the central thrusts of neoliberalism is the idea that There Is No Alternative. There is no society. Everything is the market. Under that idea, there is no need for democracy – in fact, democracy gets in the way of the market. It is indeed all about accepting your lot in life. Sure, you can compete to improve your lot, but the result of that competition is definitive. Winners and losers, all of whom deserve what they get, so the losers should just suck it up and accept it.
You might want to check this out: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/aug/18/neoliberalism-the-idea-that-changed-the-world
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That was an interesting article and made many important points. Although I probably didn’t read it carefully enough since I didn’t see anything about there being no need for democracy. I agree with you that there are SOME neoliberal ideas that have risen in how we govern, but there is no way that any Democrats – no matter how right wing they are — believe there is no need for democracy. I don’t think that is what this article is saying.
It’s possible to look at the worst case scenario of every type of philosophy and it becomes anti-democratic. Here is another quote from the article you linked to:
“Everything about the postwar political culture lay in favour of John Maynard Keynes, and an expanded role for the state in managing the economy.”
An expanded role for the state sounds like the beginnings of what the John Birch Society critics would attack as Communism. The state is more important than democracy.
Of course I don’t believe it, but I do believe that Marxism and Communism started out with all the best intentions and got subverted into something anti-democratic. Even socialism — I happen to know people who have lived in Israeli Kibbutzim for generations whose great grandparents were founders. By third or fourth generation, the kibbutz was becoming far more free market and people (who I respected!) were making comments like “there were too many lazy people there not pulling their weight”. It was enlightening to me because I had idealized the place and the change in tone of the members from the 1970s to the 2010s was shocking to me. And these were not by any means political conservatives — they were still very much labor voters. Their personal experience was that they felt that some people were pulling the weight of able-bodied others who did nothing and it had nothing to do with racism or xenophobia since all those families were the same background and the “lazy” people were just as likely to be relatives.
This is what I don’t understand about your point: which politicians do you believe are neoliberals? You can believe in some free market ideas while embracing democracy, some government provision of a safety net for all, equalizing opportunity. I agree with you that as a country we have embraced too many neoliberal ideas versus progressive ones. But if you are characterizing some Dems as embracing the neoliberalism described in that article, I don’t see it.
They embrace some parts of neoliberal philosophy the way that progressives may embrace some ideas that are part of the communist ideology but it doesn’t mean they are communists nor do they want a communist country.
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Diane,
I took a step back and looked at Flake’s voting record. The swap monster sucked him up – he is just another one that need to go.
When you look at how many Republican votes did Trump get, it’s 90% of Republicans voted for Trump. Ninety percent voted for McCain. Ninety percent voted for George W. Bush. Ninety-three percent voted for Romney. There is unity among Republican voters.
The reason Flake is leaving is because he can’t win reelection. He is barely polling double digits in Arizona, as an incumbent. So he’s trying to blame that on Trump.
The guy is a “flake” and the Arizonians recognize another loser!
The more Flakes the better. This is what draining the swamp looks like = getting rid of a bunch of RINOs.
Let’s go through Flake’s voting record =
Jeff Flake presents himself as this dyed-in-the-wool conservative, does he not? He campaigns as a conservative just like the vaunted Senator McCain does.
Jason Johnson, who worked on the Ted Cruz campaign put together a list here in response to Flake’s pathetic cry baby floor speech yesterday.
Jason Johnson says,
“1) Tempting to comment on Flake’s floor speech. Instead, offering context on his view of ‘governing’ by highlighting a few of his votes,” because his speech yesterday was all about how he can’t stand aside anymore. He can’t stand silent anymore. He simply cannot allow any of this to go on! So he’s gonna quit. He can’t, in good conscience, let somebody so unfit and so barbaric and so whatever he thinks Trump is to sit there.
“2) Jeff Flake was one of 10 Republican senators who voted to confirm Loretta Lynch for attorney general.
3) Flake voted to fund President Obama’s unconstitutional executive amnesty.
4) Flake voted against Sen. Mike Lee’s Fist Amendment Defense Act.
5) Flake voted for Obama’s $1.1 trillion Cromnibus 2015 spending bill.
6) Flake voted to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank.
7) Flake voted for S.2114 which increased Russia’s power at the International Monetary Fund.
8) Flake voted for a CLEAN debt limit suspension (2014).
“9) Flake was one of 11 Republican senators who voted to confirm Janet Yellen.
10) Flake voted for the Ryan-Murray budget which lifted spending caps & raised fees (taxes) in exchange for promises of future spending cuts,” which, of coruse, never happened. “
11) Flake voted for the Gang of 8 amnesty bill,” and yet when he’s campaigning out there in Arizona, he doesn’t campaign for amnesty, does he?
12) Flake voted for the post-Newtown gun grab.
13) Flake voted AGAINST The Defund Obamacare Act of 2013 (S.1292). …
“15) Flake preferred John Kasich over Cruz or Trump in the 2016 GOP Primary.
16) There’s more, but why bother. He has the right to say what he said but these votes and more” are why he is leaving the Senate. The people of Arizona know!
CNN – a column by Mark Bauerlein, who is “a professor of English at Emory University, senior editor of the journal First Things and author of ‘The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future; or, Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30.’”
Mark Bauerlein. The headline of his piece: “Why Conservatives Aren’t Buying Sen. John McCain’s Trump-Bashing — There is something the media must remember when it breathlessly reports on prominent Republicans speaking out against President Donald Trump.” “Sen. John McCain’s recent criticisms, for example, are news, yes, and so were Mitt Romney’s and Paul Ryan’s and [all the other Republicans] in the past.
“They deserve to be reported. But viewers and readers of this kind of news, especially longtime conservatives who voted for Mr. Trump, receive this news in a particular way. They remember. When it comes to Romney, [for example, conservative voters] remember 2012 and the image of him destroying President Barack Obama in the first debate, then settling back for the rest of the campaign, [twiddling his thumbs], believing he had it all sewn up.”
They remember Romney not defending himself against Harry Reid’s charges of cheating on taxes, not paying taxes, or some employee’s wife getting cancer. They remember Romney being critical of conservatives and trying to buy them off by saying that he was a “severe conservative.”
Conservatives remember the phonies! “And with John McCain, conservatives recall every detail of the ineptitude and waste in the 2008 election. [Conservatives] know stories of the infamous ‘economic summit’ that Sen. McCain pressured President George W. Bush to hold in the midst of the economic crisis of summer 2008…”
People remember that McCain fired a staffer for pronouncing Obama’s name correctly. People remember McCain sucking up to the mainstream media for 10 years and claiming the media was his base. “Those memories don’t go away, not when conservatives list the disasters (in their eyes) of Obama’s foreign and domestic policies. They can forgive McCain those things because they respect his military service and acknowledge his failing health.
“But when he steps to the front of the Trump critics, the content of his words fades and the fact of defeat stands out.” McCain was obsessed with being more critical of his own side than of Obama — and these are the things that the media never remembers. The media doesn’t even have any idea how conservatives see Romney or how they see McCain.
He writes here, “It is hard for liberals to understand this kind of dismay from conservatives over such failures [candidates like Romney and McCain] precisely because Democratic figures led by Barack Obama and backed by progressive entertainment and media worlds have made them think they have history on their side. Every time a Republican loses, liberals take it as a sign of the times, not just one loss for the time being. John McCain’s 2008 fiasco didn’t leave conservative voters thinking, ‘Well, it was a good fight, and we’ll get ’em next time.’
“No, they thought, ‘Something is wrong with the Republican Party.’ The Tea Party sprang up soon afterwards. When John McCain and other Republicans berate and chide President Trump, they go after a man who won,” while they couldn’t win diddly squat! Trump’s “supporters don’t forget, either,” and American conservatives don’t forget that all of these holier-than-thou critics of Trump and his behavior and his mannerisms haven’t won diddly-squat themselves — and, in the process, have been more critical of their own party to curry media favor!
The point is: The media doesn’t see any of this. Sen. McCain chastised the administration for not providing Congress with information about military adventures abroad, but he didn’t note the problems Congress had in getting answers out of Susan Rice” or Samantha Power. In other words, Republican voters remember that McCain goes after them and their own party, but that he doesn’t go after Obama and he doesn’t go after Hillary, and he doesn’t go after the real enemy. But the mainstream media has no ability to even see any of this.
End quote
So the swamp lost another loser – standing up for truth – NO, he is quitting because the Arizonians remember he lied to them about being a conservative. Standing for facts – his voting record doesn’t support his promises – that is a fact. American values? Obama’s desire to change America into a second rate country – not my values nor those who voted for Trump.
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It’s naive to say that democracies, or political systems of any kind, are “marketplaces of ideas.”
They are battlegrounds of interests, but as long as the liberal/left is going to maintain its 8th grade civics class outlook on what politics is – rest assured, our enemies don’t – it’s going to lose, and lose badly.
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Thanks,Michael,
You are thinking what I’m thinking, too bad for us, huh? Here’s mine: Some teachers, not many, but some, came into the work to teach ESL, by way of our educations in Applied Linguistics. We have not had an easy time of it, in a “fake teaching science” reform culture. California voters voted out the Bilingual education, just like American voters voted in our current POTUS. The reason teachers as a profession seem complicit has to do with the fact that they mostly are: consider state education code that permits employers to fire any new hire, despite experience, for “any reason.” Who gets to keep a teaching job? Complicit, compliant worshipers or Marzano or some other fake expert their bosses are told to pimp. I love teaching, teachers, education enough to face the fact that all of these may be fleeting memories of a time when we in America knew enough to have a middle class.
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Diane, I have a hard time applauding Mr. Flake after he was the chief sponsor for the bill (which later became law) allowing ISP’s to harvest and sell our browsing data.
I’m hoping Arizonans wake up, and end the pattern of electing the current iterations of Republicans to Congress. We need more progressives, less corporatists, in the halls of Congress.
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If Flake’s polling hadn’t been so abysmal, and if he wasn’t in psyco-right land, and if he’d likely lose a reelection bid, would he be so brave? He’s willing collateral damage.
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And your point tis???
What he said was THE TRUTH. Why change the conversation to something else, when we all know that WHAT HE SAID was spot on? It is this kind of blah-blah that becomes an echo chamber of drivel.
Yeah, he is leaving… but what he said is real , true and important!
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Thank you! It’s insane that we have people trying to undermine Flake’s point because it is coming from a right wing Republican. Why is is so hard to say Flake is absolutely right about Trump?
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I totally agree, what he said is the truth, and my point is that this Flake scumbag has been more than happy to stick it to the nation along with his Republican partners and is only man enough to speak up when HE is bound to be a victim in the polls and the voting booth. I think getting distracted from that and cheering an isolated flake news hero is the echo chamber that has us all forgetting that as the Democrats have slid right to occupy where Republicans used to be, the Republicand are gearing up to stick it to us real hard with the help of the Democrats. There is no party on the left, no party of the people, and it is time for a Bernolution.
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Diane,
From CNN – CNN: Jeff Flake just flew a kamikaze mission against Donald Trump -Chris Cillizza
A comment on the above –
Flake, the”flake” – thought he was going to become a national figure, a national hero – he would love to hear from this group on how he “speaks to truth” because he was willing to stand up and say what needed to be said in order to save this country from this reprobate pig, Donald Trump. He thought he was going to gain national acclaim and become a star, martyr, and be the toast of Washington, when the truth is he’s not even polling 18% in his reelection campaign, and he is an incumbent in Arizona.
Courageous and brave for daring to take on the tyrant Trump blew up in his face. Cillizza writes about it as Jeff Flake falling on his sword for the good of us all. That’s what you want to call it and that’s maybe what Flake thought he was doing. He was going to give up his career to save America.
He didn’t take out the president. He did not do a kamikaze mission by making that speech. The kamikaze mission occurred long before that when he made a misjudgment call on where his own voters were regarding his position and his work.
Related Links
CNN: Jeff Flake just flew a kamikaze mission against Donald Trump -Chris Cillizza
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Diane,
You did the right thing with the post celebrating the truth, which is what what Flake, Corker and McCain said.
It wasn’t about Flake , his past or his future.
it was the absolute truth in a time when there is not a word from the sycophants in the Republican party, totally purchased by the Corporate oligarchs who support their elections with showers of cash.
Yes, Corker and Flake and McCain, will vote for the tax bill that will bankrupt the nation, betraying WE THE PEOPLE, but even so, it does not detract from the words they used to describe the sick monster who sits at the head of our nation.
Your site IS a place to discuss the world in which our children are facing an age of transformation where racism and bullying have become normal, and nasty behaviors are celebrated by the the man at the top.
Your intelligence shines and your courage is appreciated. It is voices like yours that make a difference.
Do not be discourages by the self-important nags who love to hear their own voices, who find fault with everything, and are legends in their own minds.
Thank you for this forum.
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Politics is a full-body contact sport. I am glad that the President is receiving criticism.
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