Flake News…. Republican Jeff Flake, announcing his retirement from the Senate, declares “I will not be complicit”

While I certainly respect and appreciate what Arizona Senator Jeff Flake had to say this afternoon about Donald Trump’s “reckless, outrageous and undignified behavior,” and the need for members of Congress to stand up against him, I think it would have carried significantly more weight had he said it several months ago. Trump’s “reckless, outrageous and undignified behavior,” after all, isn’t exactly new. What is new, however, is the fact that Flake, even though he’s voted with the President 90% of the time, has become virtually unelectable in the deep red state of Arizona over the past several months, which is why he’s suddenly become more vocal.

Wanting the best of both worlds, Flake attempted to walk a very fine line, supporting the Trump agenda, while, at the same time, trying to make it clear that he detested the man himself. But it just wasn’t tenable. Once Flake released his book, Conscience of a Conservative, in which he said that Republicans “must condemn” Trump’s race-baiting, fear-mongering populism, it was pretty much ‘game over’ for the junior Senator. Trump not only called him a “toxic” “non-factor in the Senate” who was “weak on borders (and) crime”, but he actually traveled to Arizona and publicly endorsed a primary challenger against Flake.

So, now that it’s become clear to Flake that he has no path to victory in his fast-approaching reelection primary, he’s apparently decided to take things to the next level… Here, for those of you who may have missed it, is an excerpt from his speech on the floor of the Senate earlier today.

Sen. @JeffFlake: "Mr. President, I rise today to say 'enough'" pic.twitter.com/2XLtoj1q1b

— CSPAN (@cspan) October 24, 2017

As it’s long, I won’t share the entire transcript, but here’s how Flake began his speech.

At a moment when it seems that our democracy is more defined by our discord and our dysfunction than by our own values and principles, let me begin by noting the somewhat obvious point that these offices that we hold are not ours indefinitely. We are not here simply to mark time. Sustained incumbency is certainly not the point of seeking office and there are times when we must risk our careers in favor of our principles. Now is such a time.

It must also be said that 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, I mean 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. In this century, a new phrase has entered the language to describe the accommodation of a new and undesirable order, that phrase being the new normal.

But we must never adjust to the present coarseness of our national dialogue with the tone set up at the top. We must never regard as normal the regular and casual undermining of our democratic norms and ideals. We must never meekly accept the daily sundering of our country. The personal attacks, the threats against principles, freedoms and institution, the flagrant disregard for truth and decency.

The reckless provocations, most often for the pettiest and most personal reasons, reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with the fortunes of the people that we have been elected to serve. None of these appalling features of our current politics should ever be regarded as normal. We must never allow ourselves to lapse into thinking that that is just the way things are now.

If we simply become inured to this condition, thinking that it is just politics as usual, then heaven help us. Without fear of the consequences and without consideration of the rules of what is politically safe or palatable, 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.

And when such behavior emanates from the top of our government, it is something else. It is dangerous to a democracy. Such behavior does not project strength because our strength comes from our values. It instead projects a corruption of the spirit and weakness. It is often said that children are watching. Well, they are. And what are we going to do about that? When the next generation asks us, ‘Why didn’t you do something? Why didn’t you speak up?’ What are we going to say?

Mr. President, I rise today to say: enough. We must dedicate ourselves to making sure that the anomalous never becomes the normal. With respect and humility, I must say that we have fooled ourselves for long enough that a pivot to governing is right around the corner, a return to civility and stability right behind it…

So, just to be clear, it’s not that Trump is seeking to take away our health care, accelerate the transfer of wealth away from the American people and into the hands of the super-rich, and eliminate protections for the most vulnerable among us… it’s that he’s doing in in a manner that Flake finds personally distasteful.

Still, though, it’s encouraging see people like Flake, and Tennessee Senator Bob Corker, who has also recently found himself at the end of his political career for trying to retain his soul in the age of Trump, beginning to push against the President a little harder. Granted, it’s not nearly enough, but it’s a step in the right direction. The question is, how far are they willing to go? Are they, as someone suggested earlier today, willing to actually change their party affiliations and shift the balance of power in the Senate? It’s one thing to take jabs at Trump, as McCain, Flake and Corker have all done, but it’s another to actually go for the jugular, which they now have it within their power to do.

Right now, in the Senate, we have 52 Republicans, 46 Democrats, and 2 Independent that caucus with the Democrats. If Flake, Corker and McCain all declared as Independents and caucused with the Democrats, that would take leadership in the Senate immediately away from Mitch McConnell and the Republicans, and give it to Chuck Schumer and the Democrats, who could then aggressively move against Trump.

Flake, of course, won’t likely do that, as he seems to be weighing a 2020 presidential bid… But it feels as though we’re creeping closer to something, like the dominos are beginning to line up, so they’re ready to start falling at the very moment someone of integrity jumps forward to make the first move. Of course, the powers of darkness are lining up too, as Trump is beginning to remake the Congress in his image, turning away from establishment Republicans in favor of right-wing theocrats and nut-jobs like Roy Moore… The following is from Politico.

President Donald Trump is squeezing out his enemies in the Republican Party — diminishing the power of the GOP establishment and reshaping his party in his own image.

With the looming exits of Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake and Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, come 2019 Trump will have rid himself of his two most outspoken Republican detractors. What happens in the meantime — Corker and Flake demonstrated Tuesday they are fully emboldened now to take on the president without fear of consequences — could determine the success or failure of the GOP-controlled Congress through the 2018 midterms.

….The White House is already taking steps to ensure that a more Trump-friendly candidate takes Flake’s place. On Tuesday afternoon, the administration got in touch with Arizona Treasurer Jeff DeWit, a Trump stalwart who was an official on the 2016 campaign, to discuss the race, according to a person familiar with the conversation.

With Flake and Corker on their way out, Trump’s closest allies are expanding their effort to oust other mainstream GOP lawmakers. Bannon and David Bossie, the president’s deputy campaign manager in 2016, are lining up insurgent challengers across the country. And they’re receiving financial backing from hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer, one of Trump’s biggest donors…

The big question is, will individual Republicans in Congress ever come to realize that it’s just a matter of time before they too, like Flake and Corker, find themselves pushed from a party that’s becoming increasingly more diseased? And, if so, will they have the courage to stand up and fight against the insanity. Personally, I have little faith, having watched them over the past decade, actively participating in the devolution American politics that brought us to this point, but I suppose there’s aways a chance that they could do the right thing. As a great American once said… “You gotta have hope. Without hope, life is meaningless“.