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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsText of Sen. Jeff Flake's speech:
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona/2017/10/24/sen-jeff-flake-senate-speech-full-text/794958001/Sen. Jeff Flake says he will not seek re-election in 2018, citing the nastiness of Trump-era GOP politics Read Story
Flake, in a bombshell Senate speech: 'Mr. President, I rise today to say: Enough.'
The Republic | azcentral.com Published 12:13 p.m. MT Oct. 24, 2017 | Updated 12:34 p.m. MT Oct. 24, 2017
ARIZONA SEN. JEFF FLAKE IN THE NEWS Sen. Jeff Flake announces he will not seek re-election | 3:22
The bombshell, which Flake, R-Ariz., detailed Tuesday afternoon on the Senate floor, will further roil Republican hopes of keeping the party's 52-seat Senate majority in the midterm elections of Trump's first term.
The following is the text of Sen. Jeff Flake's remarks from the floor of the U.S. Senate on Oct. 24, 2017, as prepared for delivery.
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 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 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 institutions, the flagrant disregard for truth or 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 all 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 this is just the way things are now. If we simply become inured to this condition, thinking that this 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 didnt you do something? Why didnt 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 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. We know better than that. By now, we all know better than that.
Here, today, I stand to say that we would better serve the country and better fulfill our obligations under the constitution by adhering to our Article 1 old normal Mr. Madisons doctrine of the separation of powers. This genius innovation which affirms Madisons status as a true visionary and for which Madison argued in Federalist 51 held that the equal branches of our government would balance and counteract each other when necessary. Ambition counteracts ambition, he wrote.
But what happens if ambition fails to counteract ambition? What happens if stability fails to assert itself in the face of chaos and instability? If decency fails to call out indecency? Were the shoe on the other foot, would we Republicans meekly accept such behavior on display from dominant Democrats? Of course not, and we would be wrong if we did.
When we remain silent and fail to act when we know that that silence and inaction is the wrong thing to do because of political considerations, because we might make enemies, because we might alienate the base, because we might provoke a primary challenge, because ad infinitum, ad nauseum when we succumb to those considerations in spite of what should be greater considerations and imperatives in defense of the institutions of our liberty, then we dishonor our principles and forsake our obligations. Those things are far more important than politics.
Now, I am aware that more politically savvy people than I caution against such talk. I am aware that a segment of my party believes that anything short of complete and unquestioning loyalty to a president who belongs to my party is unacceptable and suspect.
If I have been critical, it not because I relish criticizing the behavior of the president of the United States. If I have been critical, it is because I believe that it is my obligation to do so, as a matter of duty and conscience. The notion that one should stay silent as the norms and values that keep America strong are undermined and as the alliances and agreements that ensure the stability of the entire world are routinely threatened by the level of thought that goes into 140 characters - the notion that one should say and do nothing in the face of such mercurial behavior is ahistoric and, I believe, profoundly misguided.
A Republican president named Roosevelt had this to say about the president and a citizens relationship to the office:
Acting on conscience and principle is the manner in which we express our moral selves, and as such, loyalty to conscience and principle should supersede loyalty to any man or party. We can all be forgiven for failing in that measure from time to time. I certainly put myself at the top of the list of those who fall short in that regard. I am holier-than-none. But too often, we rush not to salvage principle but to forgive and excuse our failures so that we might accommodate them and go right on failinguntil the accommodation itself becomes our principle.
In that way and over time, we can justify almost any behavior and sacrifice almost any principle. Im afraid that is where we now find ourselves.
When a leader correctly identifies real hurt and insecurity in our country and instead of addressing it goes looking for somebody to blame, there is perhaps nothing more devastating to a pluralistic society. Leadership knows that most often a good place to start in assigning blame is to first look somewhat closer to home. Leadership knows where the buck stops. Humility helps. Character counts. Leadership does not knowingly encourage or feed ugly and debased appetites in us.
Leadership lives by the American creed: E Pluribus Unum. From many, one. American leadership looks to the world, and just as Lincoln did, sees the family of man. Humanity is not a zero-sum game. When we have been at our most prosperous, we have also been at our most principled. And when we do well, the rest of the world also does well.
These articles of civic faith have been central to the American identity for as long as we have all been alive. They are our birthright and our obligation. We must guard them jealously, and pass them on for as long as the calendar has days. To betray them, or to be unserious in their defense is a betrayal of the fundamental obligations of American leadership. And to behave as if they dont matter is simply not who we are.
Now, the efficacy of American leadership around the globe has come into question. When the United States emerged from World War II we contributed about half of the worlds economic activity. It would have been easy to secure our dominance, keeping the countries that had been defeated or greatly weakened during the war in their place. We didnt do that. It would have been easy to focus inward. We resisted those impulses. Instead, we financed reconstruction of shattered countries and created international organizations and institutions that have helped provide security and foster prosperity around the world for more than 70 years.
Now, it seems that we, the architects of this visionary rules-based world order that has brought so much freedom and prosperity, are the ones most eager to abandon it.
The implications of this abandonment are profound. And the beneficiaries of this rather radical departure in the American approach to the world are the ideological enemies of our values. Despotism loves a vacuum. And our allies are now looking elsewhere for leadership. Why are they doing this? None of this is normal. And what do we as United States Senators have to say about it?
The principles that underlie our politics, the values of our founding, are too vital to our identity and to our survival to allow them to be compromised by the requirements of politics. Because politics can make us silent when we should speak, and silence can equal complicity.
I have children and grandchildren to answer to, and so, Mr. President, I will not be complicit.
I have decided that I will be better able to represent the people of Arizona and to better serve my country and my conscience by freeing myself from the political considerations that consume far too much bandwidth and would cause me to compromise far too many principles.
To that end, I am announcing today that my service in the Senate will conclude at the end of my term in early January 2019.
It is clear at this moment that a traditional conservative who believes in limited government and free markets, who is devoted to free trade, and who is pro-immigration, has a narrower and narrower path to nomination in the Republican party the party that for so long has defined itself by belief in those things. It is also clear to me for the moment we have given in or given up on those core principles in favor of the more viscerally satisfying anger and resentment. To be clear, the anger and resentment that the people feel at the royal mess we have created are justified. But anger and resentment are not a governing philosophy.
There is an undeniable potency to a populist appeal but mischaracterizing or misunderstanding our problems and giving in to the impulse to scapegoat and belittle threatens to turn us into a fearful, backward-looking people. In the case of the Republican party, those things also threaten to turn us into a fearful, backward-looking minority party.
We were not made great as a country by indulging or even exalting our worst impulses, turning against ourselves, glorying in the things which divide us, and calling fake things true and true things fake. And we did not become the beacon of freedom in the darkest corners of the world by flouting our institutions and failing to understand just how hard-won and vulnerable they are.
This spell will eventually break. That is my belief. We will return to ourselves once more, and I say the sooner the better. Because to have a heathy government we must have healthy and functioning parties. We must respect each other again in an atmosphere of shared facts and shared values, comity and good faith. We must argue our positions fervently, and never be afraid to compromise. We must assume the best of our fellow man, and always look for the good. Until that days comes, we must be unafraid to stand up and speak out as if our country depends on it. Because it does.
I plan to spend the remaining fourteen months of my senate term doing just that.
Mr. President, the graveyard is full of indispensable men and women -- none of us here is indispensable. Nor were even the great figures from history who toiled at these very desks in this very chamber to shape this country that we have inherited. What is indispensable are the values that they consecrated in Philadelphia and in this place, values which have endured and will endure for so long as men and women wish to remain free. What is indispensable is what we do here in defense of those values. A political career doesnt mean much if we are complicit in undermining those values.
I thank my colleagues for indulging me here today, and will close by borrowing the words of President Lincoln, who knew more about healing enmity and preserving our founding values than any other American who has ever lived. His words from his first inaugural were a prayer in his time, and are no less so in ours:
We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
NNadir
(33,525 posts)I may not agree with Senator Flake on many things, but his patriotism surprises me to the bone; while he and I agree on very little, I am proud to say "Here is an American."
The Republican party of course will become even worse as all the real Americans leave and the opportunistic traitors and racists remain.
7962
(11,841 posts)Look at the polls for Alabama, as red a state as you can get. That idiot "judge" is barely ahead of the Dem candidate
NNadir
(33,525 posts)...as surely it will.
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,630 posts)I wish he were a Democrat. There is so much truth, and painful truth at that, in his words.
I wish him well.
I hope the Republican party will listen to him, but I doubt that they will. They are too far gone up the road to perdition.
I hope more of his fellow Republicans will follow suit and decline to run again in 2018. Such moves will help us cleanse the Nation of their noxious plans.
K&R
Cracklin Charlie
(12,904 posts)I think his country needs men, and women, who can bring those ideals to our nation.
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,630 posts)Cracklin Charlie
(12,904 posts)Peace.
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,630 posts)My peace to you as well...
tblue37
(65,403 posts)hibbing
(10,098 posts)Doubtful, he's all hat and no cattle.
Peace
tblue37
(65,403 posts)extreme right wing, but both have sometimes resisted Trump publicly.
Cracklin Charlie
(12,904 posts)I can't watch!
Was Flake's bark-ripper in the Senate, in front of Trump?
Did the Russian flag get thrown at Trump inside the Capitol building?
There's somethin' happenin' here...
babylonsister
(171,070 posts)give this speech; I'm sure there's video around somewhere. He gave it on the floor of the Senate, I believe, but I don't know if dt was there.
The flag got thrown prior to this as dt was heading towards lunch with the congresscritters, I think.
Anyone know more?
BumRushDaShow
(129,087 posts)There were a pile of small flags thrown!
lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)Words to the wise - if there are any wise Reputins remaining.
Complicity carries consequences.
NNadir
(33,525 posts)lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)underpants
(182,826 posts)I'm glad someone got up and said it where the masses can hear it.
Great speech.
mercuryblues
(14,532 posts)And what did they do with the real Jeff Flake?
The_Casual_Observer
(27,742 posts)he has for him. I would guess that Flake regrets voting yes on Obamacare repeal.
tblue37
(65,403 posts)The_Casual_Observer
(27,742 posts)except that he won't run again, to them this a big "win".
tblue37
(65,403 posts)SDJay
(1,089 posts)to me when the only people who suddenly find their honesty are the ones on the way out the door. If some standing repukes who weren't retiring would start saying this, then I think you'd have something. McCain is the only one I can think of off the top of my head.
To me this was nothing more than a concession speech, as Flake was probably going to lose his primary to yet another wack-a-doo DumpHumper. I certainly agree with the message and am always happy to see anybody shit on Dump, but it won't make a difference in the grand scheme of things.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)"the only people who suddenly find their honesty are the ones on the way out the door..."
It could be his honesty led him to the door. Let's not pretend we have absolute knowledge and from that pretense, bellow our righteous call-to-arms based on little more than biased supposition.
"but it won't make a difference in the grand scheme of things..."
Honesty often won't make a difference in the grand scheme of things as well; but then again, that's not why we hold honesty as virtue, is it?
SDJay
(1,089 posts)that he's going to lose. Sorry, I have trouble assigning virtue to anyone who hitched their wagon - even indirectly - to treason in order to hold onto their powerful positions. Flake never really spoke out in support of Dump, but he did benefit from Dump's presence last November imo.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)SDJay
(1,089 posts)I really do. I just see this as maybe Dump tweets something juvenile at Flake, Dump's feces-flinging followers pile on, it gets some news for a bit and that's that. Much like you said, which basically is my point.
To your other point, I hope this leads to others speaking truth to the point that this horrible, nation-threatening 'movement' of dimwits and racists is stamped out. Based on the past year or so, though, I'm skeptical.
The_jackalope
(1,660 posts)I think that speech will become an instant classic. It certainly deserves to be.
Well said, Senator.
tblue37
(65,403 posts)wiggs
(7,814 posts)mahatmakanejeeves
(57,489 posts)dalton99a
(81,515 posts)Thunderbeast
(3,417 posts)Jeff Flake was complicit during his Senate term in the obstructionist GOP policies.
Jeff Flake signed on to the unconscionable theft of a Supreme Court nomination.
Jeff Flake knew ALL HE NEEDED TO KNOW while his party flew off the rails before the election and into the hands of Nazis, Bannon, Alex Jones, and the Christo-Faciests.
SO, Senator, I am glad to hear your words. They are spoken from a man, whom seeing the polls, knows he will lose the primary to another Roy Moore. The Arizona Republicans have been dominated by crazy racists for decades.
They ring of a convicted man apologizing in court to his victims. Your accountability for your complicity does not end here.
druidity33
(6,446 posts)rainin
(3,011 posts)in charge of one of the committees that went after Hillary on Benghazi? I viscerally hate him, but I can't remember why.
orangecrush
(19,572 posts)malaise
(269,050 posts)Respect due.
That said how many times did he vote to repeal Obamacare?
alphafemale
(18,497 posts)That will be in textbooks.
And I do not even really like that jackass.
List left
(595 posts)Pepsidog
(6,254 posts)Irrespective of his motivations, past actions and/or votes, Sen. Flake should be commended for coming forth with such passion speaking to the sorry state his party has made of this country. Maybe, hopefully, one by one, more Republicans will have the courage to follow Sen. Flake and Corker who I personally could never stomach. Its sad when the President of the USA gets into a twitter war with a North Korean dictator and I am rooting for the dictator. I am sick to my stomach to be cheering for W whom I despised while in office but now looks and sounds like an elder statesman. I want my country back from these traitorous republicans who have ruined our country. I suspect the Traitor in Chief will declare victory and some point and resign when Mueller shows his cards. Then, I fear, the agnst of a President Pence will be even worse than the ignorant low-life who now occupies The White House.
orangecrush
(19,572 posts)It was a courageous speech, a powerful speech.
I never thought I'd say that about a republican.
He put eloquently into words what I've been feeling since last November.
Interesting that so many newbies here jumped in to attack him.
In my prayers, Flake, McCain, Corker and maybe others have information other republicans in congress may not be privy to, and they are getting the public ready for the removal to go down.
This sounds to me like a definite declaration of Trumps unfitness.
Duppers
(28,125 posts)BumRushDaShow
(129,087 posts)(the first half of the intro sentence was cut off) -
7962
(11,841 posts)renate
(13,776 posts)And I still kind of do for that reason.
But now I find (to my horror, really) that I can respect them somewhat if their opinions are genuinely held and aren't just grandstanding for their base. Honest disagreements are at least honest.
There's little if anything that I agree with Jeff Flake on other than the contents of this speech, but I'm not going to assume that he's got any motives other than what he's expressed, or retiring rather than risk defeat. I'm happy to take him at his word here and I'm grateful that he's speaking out.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)A freaking year+ of words is spineless!!
oasis
(49,389 posts)Scruffy1
(3,256 posts)He still votes to screw the American people for the big money. He just has the sads that Trump is so unvarnished at it and exposes scum like him for what tthey are.
we can do it
(12,189 posts)catbyte
(34,402 posts)Forgive me if I see this as little more than a CYA move.