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Flake, etc.
I’m a conservative: I want less and better government, a stronger military, more secure borders, and a greater respect for traditional values. That last part is my job — the culture war begins at home — but the rest of it is up to the people we elect.
Congressmen (both Representatives and Senators) are elected to pass laws. When I vote for a conservative Congressman, I’m doing so hoping that he’ll go to Congress and be an effective conservative legislator. I’m not sending him to be a cultural warrior, or to be an arbiter of taste and decorum. His job is to pass laws that make government smaller and better, and that keep us free and secure.
I have the liberty of being free to spout off without repercussions. I can express my low opinion of the President with no greater consequence than that I’ll get tempted into a boring and ultimately pointless debate here about whether President Trump is really playing three-dimensional chess or drunken lawn darts. If I choose to spend my time doing that, I’m really the only one who bears the cost.
Our Congressmen, on the other hand, have a job to do, and doing that job effectively means being able to maintain a working relationship with critical colleagues — including, for better or worse, the President. If being effective means biting his tongue and refraining from commenting on things that are, frankly, obvious to everyone, then that’s what I expect my Congressman to do. He’s there to legislate, not to play Emily Post: I elected neither a conscience nor a Cassandra.
Say what you will about the man, there is little mysterious about President Trump. I don’t need — no one needs — a Senator to interpret him for us. We need Senators to repeal Obamacare, cut taxes, rebuild the Navy, and make permanent the regulatory reforms the President is, to his credit, making on his own right now.
So, with all due respect to the high-minded gentlemen (and ladies) of the Senate: shut up and do your jobs.
Published in Politics
Flake wanted President Clinton, Henry. Care to explain why you want the GOP to be more like Jeff Flake rather than someone who did everything in their power to prevent that nightmare scenario for conservatism?
I don’t think Jeff Flake “wanted President Clinton.” I think Jeff Flake had very real concerns — which I share — about the long-term prospects of success of having Donald Trump leading the Republican party.
Senator Flake and I are much closer in agreement, temperamentally and politically, than are President Trump and I. My complaint about the Senator is that he, in my opinion, wasted an opportunity to continue helping to move the country to the right, and in the process made it harder for others critical of President Trump’s shortcomings to gently nudge the administration in the right direction. As I wrote, we don’t need someone to tell us what many of us already believe — that President Trump brings a lot of negatives to the table, and that it would be good for us to restore a little conservative normalcy to the party when we can.
I’m a decent man. It doesn’t qualify me to be a senator.
The question — at least, as far as I’m concerned — is, is the cause of conservatism better advanced by the Senate working to pass conservative legislation and cooperate, as best as it can, with the President, despite the latter’s rather obvious deficiencies? I think the answer to that is yes.
The alternative, increasing tension between the executive and legislative branches by pointedly telling us what most of us already suspect — that the President falls short, in terms of integrity, character, and competence, from what we’d like in a chief executive — while undoubtedly satisfying to the Senator, probably doesn’t help us move the conservative ball forward. Other people — people outside of the D.C. GOP — can communicate those things without creating internecine strife, and without ultimately forcing Senators to explicitly endorse presidential conduct they frankly don’t respect.
This shouldn’t be about Trump. It should be about the Republican Congress passing laws, and the Republican President signing them.
That’s true. But it doesn’t seem to be happening.
Well, what do you expect? We have some moderate to liberal Republicans in the Senate. How can you get an Obamacare repeal, or anything else we conservatives would like to see happen, with Sue Collins, Murkowski, and others like them? Short of trying to replace them with conservatives – good luck with that in Maine – there’s just not much that can be realistically accomplished.
As best I can recall, Reagan got done what he got done without control of either house. Are we just more divided and partisan now?
Randy,
No, we’re clean out of our minds with sexual schizophrenia and cultural Marxism. Other than that everything is just peachy.
Regards,
Jim
Could you stop saying that? We got it. Don’t give us your bona fides, just make the argument. It gets tiresome…
I can’t get past it. You’re a Republican how? If that is your analysis of the current situation: your analysis is worth squat. I want to engage your arguments in good faith, but good faith seems to have no part of your arguments.
Whereas I don’t mind the biographical detail, but I do think the “I’ll vote for a Democrat” part is a little out there. I don’t like President Trump very much at all, but he’s done nothing that would in any way encourage me to turn any portion of government over to the Democratic party right now.
Recommend a compare and contrast between Flakes votes and statements as a mere representative, with the way voted and gesticulated as a Senator. Then meditate on the cat’s selfless devotion to honest politics. Then meditate on whether those comments could possibly come from someone with a whisper of a hope of reelection.
If you are 35 or older, you qualify.
Live or die by the argument. We can either abhor and defy the beast or bow out and let a leadership culture continue with “eh, you might get skonked on the head by a bicycle lock at a peaceful demonstration.”
The advantage of my position is that I don’t have to speculate about the Senator’s motives, because my advice is the same in any case: focus on legislation, and leave it to us to decide what we think about the highly visible, painfully transparent President Trump and the way he conducts himself.
(Which means that I’m free to give the Senator the benefit of the doubt — usually my inclination — while still suggesting he and his fellows behave differently.)
Deal.
Excuse me, but it wasn’t Trump who made that decision. It was Flake. Flake is resigning because Flake decided to resign. He can piss and moan about Senate decorum and crap, but he’s ultimately responsible for his own decisions.
He’s sounding like the kid who trips and falls, and then shouts “Look what you made me do!” to the nearest person.
Facing a tough primary, he couldn’t face not winning. An incumbent losing in a primary is so embarrassing.* Flake has an ego that must be satisfied, and losing in a primary would be too damaging. So he decided to turn himself into a martyr for the cause. That cause being his own post-Senate career and nothing else. (What do you think? Dancing with the Stars? Celebrity Survivor?)
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*I’m reminded of David Obey (D-Flaming Abyss), deciding not to run for re-election when it was looking like he’d lose to Sean Duffy. So he quit (angrily insisting that if he had decided to run again, he’d most certainly win!). (Of course, he netted a bunch of pork for his son on the way out the door.)
It seems to me that Flake had written off his chances for reelection long before 2016 and long before Trump was being taken seriously. After all, Flake didn’t even get a majority of the vote when he won his seat in 2012, which was otherwise a very good year for Republicans in red states. So, recognizing that he was going to lose in 2018, Flake decided to invent his own narrative for why he would lose – specifically, he was the courageous Republican who was willing to stand up to Trump. If public opinion turns dramatically against Trump, Flake might be able to resurrect his political career, posturing as the man who was ahead of his time. These guys are devious – you’ve got to give them that.