Oh, man. The Republican Party is seriously fucked. And this is according to other Republicans! But as bad as that sounds, the reality is worse.
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) wrote a “Conscience of a Conservative: A Rejection of Destructive Politics and a Return to Principle.” (For the record, I hate today’s taste in book titles. Just reading his subtitle makes my eyes feel tired.)
Where was I? Right. Sen. Flake — a Republican, god almighty!— was critical of President Donald Trump. He didn’t back that up in person for quite a while, which was pretty odd. I mean, he wrote the damn thing; it’s not like his opinions were a surprise. But today, Flake finally admitted the Bannon wing would primary him out of office. He announced his retirement at the end of the current term.
And that left Sen. Flake wonderfully unencumbered. Whoa! He excoriated Trump on the Senate floor like a man with a real conscience.
I rise today with no small measure of regret. Regret, because of the state of our disunion, regret because of the disrepair and destructiveness of our politics, regret because of the indecency of our discourse, regret because of the coarseness of our leadership, regret for the compromise of our moral authority, and by our — all of our — complicity in this alarming and dangerous state of affairs. It is time for our complicity and our accommodation of the unacceptable to end.
— Sen. Jeff Flake, October 24, 2017
Sen. Flake joins Senators Bob Corker (R-TN) and John McCain (other R-AZ) in criticizing the Republican President and the current Republican party.
We must stop pretending that the degradation of our politics and the conduct of some in our executive branch are normal. They are not normal. Reckless, outrageous, and undignified behavior has become excused and countenanced as ‘telling it like it is,’ when it is actually just reckless, outrageous, and undignified.
— Sen. Jeff Flake, October 24, 2017
The important part? All of them have are on their way out. Flake and Corker already know that not toeing their Republican party line has guaranteed their political death.
The President has great difficulty with the truth. On many issues.
— Sen. Bob Corker, October 24, 2017
The current Republican party ensured that none of these esteemed members of the Senate can represent their voters or their principles. Not and stay in the Republican party. There can only be the one loyalty, and it isn’t truth, the voters, common sense, policy, goals, or even reality itself.
Understand: Flake and Corker are both very conservative. I disagree with both of them almost across the board. They’ve voted for every stupid-ass bill that Trump and the morally dead Republicans have written. Their support didn’t change, even when those bills contradicted everything they pretend to believe in. And they supported the bills even when they weren’t even allowed to read them ahead of time. That means that, in practical, how-they-vote terms, both these esteemed gentlemen have been completely, mindlessly, party-line loyal to their ethically decadent party.
And there’s no room in the Republican party for them.
Yes, it’s much worse than you’d think.
