Good story overall.
Hint to the author—learn the difference between tenant and tenet.
Do it now.
The whole thing - Flake retiring + the amazing speech he gave about it - is pretty ok with me.
While I get the shock this retirement has caused I feel like everyone is burying the real lede:
Flake had been trailing hardline conservative former state Sen. Kelli
Ward ® by huge margins in primary polls due to his ongoing war with
Trump, and Republicans, including his own strategists, were greatly
worried he’d either lose to a fatally flawed nominee or come out of the
primary so wounded,…
This is why Republicans are not standing up to Trump. Trump is consolidating power within the party and the base LOVES him! It’s 1933!
Did you see the news that two Texas judges have left the GOP and joined the Dems in the last couple of weeks?
He knew he wasn’t going to run for re-election, but this sure gives him freedom to oppose Trump along with Bob Corker. Dean Heller won’t be far behind.
Perhaps it is foreshadowing that our fundamental rights are only temporary occupants of the Constitution under our current government?
Two more? Right after January two left the GOP and became Democrats so this makes four? O my god - this is getting close to giving me the vapors.
Everybody is always so concerned about Trump’s base - every day people here say they’ll never leave him.
Well, they are not going to go anywhere with us. But they will go with their own kind. The more of them get into the lifeboat, the more will follow.
Except that they won’t really oppose Trump in any way that is meaningful to those of us on the other side.
These are all committed conservatives. They will not vote against any part of the conservative agenda out of spite. They favor a big tax cut, repealing the ACA, etc.
And if Democrats don’t run people that can win in these red states, It’s going to be much worse. Trump is consolidating his power.
Afraid not. It’s just very sloppy writing and even sloppier editing.
But then, this is a democracy, and if the Dems can’t win an election, then they don’t get to run the country.
I helps a lot when said election isn’t: for gerrymandered districts, there isn’t any voter suppression and Russian propaganda hasn’t infected the entire process.
And that doesn’t even cover cross-hatching and vote rigging.
I wonder how much dirt he has on them since the Russians hacked the GOP same as the Dems.
No gerrymandering in senate races.
Well cross one off the list.
In a sense, gerrymandering of the Senate is written into the Constitution. Democratic senators represent approximately 180 million people while Republican senators represent about 140 million.
ADDED LATER: Unfortunately, that bit of gerrymandering won’t change under anything short of a revolution, because a constitutional amendment mandating proportional representation in the Senate would requite a bunch of senators voting against their own interests.
But with the pair gone and McCain’s future in the Senate uncertain, it’s not clear who will fill that role. Corker didn’t have an answer when a reporter asked him who will be left to stand up when the “people who stand up against the demagogues” head for the exits.
Well, Corker and Flake and McCain can all still speak truth to power, and stand up for this country against those who seek to undermine American values. There is also Collins. Republicans who love this country can also recruit other former members of the Senate, like Kassebaum and Dole, and other conservatives who actually knew what it took to govern this country to chime in. 2018 is shaping up like it will require an all-out defense strategy to save this country from oligarchy. Better yet, we can mount an all-out offensive to put those fuckers on the defense.It is looking more and more possible that Barrack Obama was the last legitimately elected President of the United States of America.
It’s very possible that people everywhere, even those who voted for trumpp, are having buyer’s remorse and do not want to move further to the right and so might consider someone on the left this time next year.
Senators represent states.
Representatives in the House represent individual citizens.