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Left-wing pundits in America need to get over themselves and support anti-Trump Republicans like Jeff Flake
Yes, Jeff Flake – who has decided not to stand for re-election while Trump is President – may have voted with Trump nearly 90 per cent of the time. But it's what he does object to that's important
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It’s easy to roll your eyes at Republicans. Besides their run-of-the-mill odious policies which would starve the poor and oppress anyone who isn’t straight and white and male, they nominated Donald Trump. Then, when he continually proved himself unfit for office, they either remained silent or defended him. Many still do.
But now a few brave souls are speaking up, and whether those of us in the resistance like it or not, we need them.
The latest Republican to speak out is Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona, who, in an impassioned speech on the Senate floor, announced he would not be seeking re-election in 2018.
“Politics can make us silent when we should speak, and silence can equal complicity,” Flake said. “I have children and grandchildren to answer to, and so, Mr President, I will not be complicit.”
Hear. Bloody. Hear.
I’ve seen several prominent left-wing writers criticising Flake’s statement as grandstanding. Shannon Watts, a leading gun control campaigner, tweeted that Jeff Flake voted against background checks even after former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in 2011. Others have pointed out he voted against disaster relief for Puerto Rico. Analyst group FiveThirtyEight says he’s voted with Trump nearly 90 per cent of the time.
This isn’t surprising, as the Arizona Republic’s Robert Robb pointed out last month. Although on many specific policies the Senator and the President may agree, “Flake’s principal problem with Trump,” Robb writes, “is how he plays politics. Trump’s only political modus operandi is to attack other people, often demagogically. Flake finds that abhorrent and destructive.”
That’s because any American who loves their country would agree it is. Part of our resistance to Trump has to be his policies. Of course it must, as it would be with any Republican president.
If it were Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio or Ben Carson in the Oval Office, I’d be opposing their policies the same as I oppose Trump’s – because I’m a progressive and a socialist. But that can’t be the only thing we oppose, and honestly, it isn’t the most important.
Democracy is a contest of ideas, but that contest only works if we agree on the rules beforehand. Trump violates the basic norms of American democracy, degrading them to a point of no return.
He threatens the media, questioning whether networks critical of him should have their licences revoked. He embraces fringe elements (such as neo-Nazis) and normalises their attacks on our multicultural society. He defines patriotism not as a defence of the ideals our country aspires to, but as a racial and cultural purity test. He freely threatens nuclear war on social media. And don’t forget, he campaigned on locking his political opponent up.
These aren’t American ideals. They’re authoritarian tactics.
The danger of Trump isn’t that he’ll cut taxes for the wealthy, or fail to pass gun control, or roll back some civil rights protections for LGBT people. Any Republican president would do the same, and that’s something the American left would have to fight no matter which GOP candidate had won the White House.
Even if Trump is defeated in 2020, we’ll have to fight these same battles the next time we have a Republican president. That sucks, but it’s not the same as having a proto-fascist as president. After all, if Trump succeeds in destroying our democracy, we’ll have no chance of winning any future progressive battles. That’s the whole point of fascism.
Trump presents a unique risk to our country, to civil discourse, to the American experiment, which has existed since 1788 when the Constitution was ratified. We’re not fighting for a progressive agenda right now. We’re fighting for the soul of America and the continued existence of democracy on these shores.
That means erstwhile opponents will have to become allies, even if we have to hold our noses as we embrace them. In any other year, under any other president, I wouldn’t bat an eyelid at a Republican senator standing down. But we don’t live in ordinary times.
This is a time for American patriots. We must put party aside and fight for the country we all love and the norms that make it work. If that means embracing anti-Trump Republicans, I’m more than willing to offer that olive branch.
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