Mccarthy was not President…drumpf creep is…
The Dixiecrat-GOP has been embracing their current brand of McCarthyism from at least the Newt Gingrich Heyday, I would say from the Reagan Era. Corker was a front line participant in the Sheldon Adelson-Bibi Netanyahu insult to the American people, and the abject lying about the Iran Nuclear Deal. He participated in the Dixiecrat-GOP attempt to limit Obama to one term, the record breaking number of Filibusters, the hateful spewing of the fiction that Obama was a Socialist Dictator because he had to resort to Executive Orders in the face of the worst obstruction (by Corker and Flake’s Party) that a President has dealt with. Both participated in the refusal to let Garland Merrick’s nomination come to a vote. Trumpism is the logical evolution of the agendas that the GOP has embraced and of the outright lies that they have preached.
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Joseph Welch had the guts to call out McCarthy to his face, on live national television.
And he hadn’t announced his retirement, probably to the security of cushy life as a lobbyist or cable news talking head.
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Not to mention Twitter and no Fairness Doctrine.
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Bad history. Unlike der Furor, Eisenhower was never on McCarthy’s side. And when he could, he put his weight against McCarthy. Should he have spoken out earlier? Of course. But he did not support McCarthy, as the current occupant supports today’s demagogic noise.
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Flake’s speech and op-ed are getting all the headlines for a day and I guess that’s a small net good. But the infuriating thing is that his words are par for the course for what any average slightly left-of-center politically-aware poster has been saying here and in other forums and platforms for 20 years. Not about Trump, obviously, but the real issue - the Republican party. Donald Trump isn’t the problem. The people who voted for him are and the media that caters to their moral bankruptcies are the problem. The petty childishness, attack mode politics, lack of any real understanding of policy or how to craft it for the benefit of American citizens, Gold Star family attacks, overt racism and blatant lies - It’s all been there on full display for a very long time now. Trump just condensed it. Did Flake forget Cindy Sheehan and “swift boating”? Sarah Palin? The decades-worth of smears, lies, and fake scandals by right wing media outlets that huge percentages of Republicans watch, and what have convinced them (sometimes people in my own family) that I’m their sworn enemy because I think gay marriage and cheaper healthcare are good? Where was Flake then?
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Although he did make a cameo as the Judge in Anatomy of a Murder…
I would trace this back to 1980, at least, with Raygun’s election. The R-presidents have been sharing their stupid with the “base” for nearly 40 years.
The one half-way intelligent R-president, H.W., lost “the base” in his second election, even though he had Desert Storm on his resume.
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Trump: Kind of disappointing, we want to be McCarthy’s McCarthy.
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I am thinking it’s more along the lines of Franco. Flake hasn’t really done much policywise to get on trump’s bad side; it’s his personal loyalty that’s at issue for the leader of the regime.
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Actions talk, bullshit walks - take II
Yesterday the oh so righteous flake voted to strike down the Obama era rule that would force banks and other financial companies to face class action lawsuits for their bad practices (think Wells Fargo and Equifax). Instead they will be able to continue to force their customers into binding arbitration (in the very small print of the contract) where the businesses win a disproportionate amount of the time. Pence broke the tie so a No vote by flake would have killed this legislation. Actions talk, flake walked
FU flake, to use your words, “Enough!” Don’t let the door hit you etc.
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Part of this may be a Mormon branding issue. Flake is a direct descendent of the polygamous William Jordan Flake, one of Brigham Young’s right-hand men and cofounder of Snowflake, AZ. Flakes eventually ascended to local and state AZ politics. Mormons, for all the weirdness of beliefs, have had trouble going where the KKK went (e.g. this), which has done well with other groups like the Southern Baptists. Even with their explicitly racist church views well into the 1970s. 19th century scientology, if anything, has to put its credibility issues first. A Mormon patina is ok for Marco Rubio and the Book of Mormon musical missionary character and Ted Cruz sycophancy of Mike Lee almost refreshing, but Jeff Flake, because of his heritage is and will always be a standard bearer. He did have some humor in him. Flake famously explained that his non-attendance of the Republican National Convention was because he had more important business to attend to like “mowing my lawn.”
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I posted this on a friend’s comment yesterday and I think the words fit nicely with Flake.
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Say his name, you cowards. Say his fucking name.
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Preach!
“I’m not the Russia hater, you’re the Russia hater!”
Nah. Goes further back than that. Nixon had his “law and order” campaign which directly went after crime in the cities by “those people”. We all knew what he meant and who his administration was targeting.
Reagan used the same ploy with “welfare queens” as the cause of society’s problems, and then moved onto the problem of entitlements and the poors. Lee Atwater would go on to help H.W. continue to appeal to whites through race-based campaigns using the southern strategy, coded language, and dog whistles to attract and maintain a permanently loyal Republican base, who only claimed to want “small government”. Yeah, riiiight.
When H.W. used the Willie Horton ad, one could say his campaign debased the Republican party even more. Did they care? Hell no. Anything to win, even if it divided the American people by stoking racial animus to get ahead with the electorate, using white fear of minorities as their catalyst.
In truth, most of this traces back to the passage of the Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Act with Republicans in the 60’s. The Republican party has never gotten over expanding the franchise and guaranteeing those that had been marginalized the right to vote.
Throw in all that other culture war bullshit, using women’s rights, gay rights, immigrant’s rights, and whatever else they could come up with to divide and conquer.
Jeff Flake should have seen this thing coming when he joined the Republican party. Trump is a natural outgrowth of this history and he did not specifically address that as far as I can tell. He went into this thing with his eyes wide open instead of half shut or blind to all the other stuff that his party has done to demean and degrade at least half of the country. Where was he at the time when tRump made those attacks on PoC? For that matter, where has he been on all the grifting and graft that’s taken place by tRump since election day?
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Jeff Flake didn’t decide not to run without talking to some people pretty high up in the Mormon church, and undoubtedly getting their blessing.
There are 425,000 members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Arizona, and they play a big role in Arizona elections, turning out at a very high rate.
The Mormon leadership is very conservative, but also very patriotic and very astute.
In wondering what advice they gave. I can’t think the church leadership recommended anything other than exactly what Flake did. It is more in their nature to walk away from public controversy and make an impact by their absence, rather than fighting in public.
We will see in coming months whether there is a broader move by Mormons to walk away from Trump.
Mormons are unlikely to support Kelli Ward, especially after her wild attacks on Flake. He is the great-great-grandson of the man credited with founding the first successful Mormon settlement in Arizona. With this group, that means something.
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As other have noted, if voting for massive cuts to Medicare and Medicaid for a tax cut for rich people (and also voting to take away consumer protections against banks and payday loansharks) is any indication, this is how you are supposed to be and you’ve not deviated one bit, Jeff.
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