Much has been said about Sen. Jeff Flake’s announcement earlier this week that he will not run for re-election in 2018. His own words from the Senate floor, though, offer the best explanation.
“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 … there are times when we must risk our careers in favor of our principles. Now is such a time.”
“[I rise today with] 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.”
“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.”
Of course, Flake is talking about President Trump and his degradation of our daily political interactions. Flake continues.
“Mr. President, I rise today to say: enough.”
The tragedy, of course, is that Flake is retiring just when he musters the courage to stand up for truth. We need valiant Republicans willing to speak out against the president. And no, I’m not talking about never-Trumpers, myself included, who have been against Trump from the beginning. We need those who were willing to give him a chance, to grant a wide berth in hopes of policy advancement, who now realize that Congress needs to reclaim the narrative from distracting, daily violations of common decency, to reach across the aisle and to get something done.
America is desperate for such men and women.
But here’s the thing: While Flake spent the day basking in moral superiority, he then turned around and voted for a rescission of a rule that allows a person to sue a bank, or credit company, in class action lawsuits for wrongs committed. Big banks can once again enforce forced arbitration clauses, and the little guy loses. Where in the Constitution does it state that banks are protected from popular accountability? Where does it say that the people cannot sue a bank?
What would it take here in Utah for a leader to be as courageous as Flake in speaking against the absurdity of the man who holds the presidency and enact good policy?
Such a leader could promote and fund criminal justice and sentencing reform that stops criminalizing today’s youth for drug possession and stops incarcerating individuals who cannot afford bail before they are found guilty of any crime. When an American president can admit to taking illegal drugs, one must question why so many of our young men and women, disproportionately black and Hispanic, have their lives coopted by out-of-date, puritanical laws.
Such a leader could promote self-reliance in a compassionate way that preserves Friedrich Hayek’s plea, in “The Road to Serfdom,” for a social safety net. (Hayek was a conservative economist who argued against government control through central planning.) “There can be no doubt that some minimum of food, shelter and clothing, sufficient to preserve health and the capacity to work, can be assured to everybody. … Nor is there any reason why the state should not assist the individuals in providing for those common hazards of life against which, because of their uncertainty, few individuals can make adequate provision.”
Such a leader would realize that “charity care” is not going to cut it in Utah, and that programs like Gov. Gary Herbert’s Healthy Utah are good starting places to test strategies for taking care of our poor while safeguarding exit strategies and work requirements. Instead, what we have is stalemate, endless begging of federal agencies to grant us waivers, and a homeless population we can’t care for.
To all those courageous leaders out there: Speak up, and stay in the game. We need you.