Republican Jeff Flake’s speech to the Senate denouncing Donald Trump – as a person and in his approach to government – came just ahead of his announcement that he would not be seeking re-election in Arizona.
Flake’s broadside brought a range of reactions across the political spectrum. The sharp divergence on the right displays a breach that, almost a year since Trump was elected, looks less likely than ever to be mended.
It may be too crude to simply characterize the two camps as vaguely principled conservatives on the one hand, and Trump waterboys on the other. It’s increasingly clear, though, that for the latter group, nothing Trump says or does, and no criticism of him, however well-founded, will change their minds.
Flake Flakes
Publication The American Conservative
Author Rod Dreher is the American Conservative’s most prolific blogger and a frequent feature of this column.
Why you should read Dreher was never a fan of Donald Trump, and if anything his criticisms have become sharper over time. He is sympathetic to Flake, but also believes that the principles he expresses have no real constituency, hence the triumph of Trumpism. In Dreher’s view, the ossified Reaganism which is the only alternative conservatives have to offer has become a false idol. All the fiery speeches in the world do not add up to a credible alternative.
Extract “Here’s the thing, though: Jeff Flake’s conservatism deserves to lose. He’s right about Trump’s character, but as I wrote in response to his book a short while back, all he offers is warmed-over Reaganism. If establishment Republicans like Flake had been paying attention, they would have changed with the times, and headed off somebody like Trump. I don’t mean that they should have surrendered their principles, necessarily, but adjusted them to fit the circumstances. Political parties are not churches, after all. The problem with the Republican party and movement conservatism is that it regarded Reaganism as a kind of religion.”
Hannity Blasts Flake: ‘Don’t Let The Door Hit You on the Way Out’
Publication Fox News
Author Sean Hannity, star of talk radio, television, and sometime Trump dining companion, needs little introduction.
Why you should watch Is Hannity the most craven of Trump’s conservative media sycophants? As long as Alex Jones and Laura Ingraham are around, the competition will always be stiff. But performances like Tuesday night’s suggest that Hannity is the pick of the bunch. In his opening monologue, he completely disregarded the content of Flake’s speech and used it as an opportunity to threaten any other senators who might step out of line. For Hannity, the only principle is Trumpism, which is not really any principle at all.
Extract Watch the shamelessness ripen over the full five minutes.
No, Trump Didn’t Destroy Flake. Flake Destroyed Flake, And Now He’s Cynically Pandering
Publication The Daily Wire
Author Since leaving Breitbart, Ben Shapiro has divided his time between trashing Trumpies in the media and the GOP, and ostentatious attempts to “trigger” the left by staging pointless events on campuses.
Why you should read Shapiro walks a fine line. On the one hand, he is a critic of Trump, and his former boss Steve Bannon over at Breitbart. On the other hand, he works from the same page (see immigration restriction) and the same playbook (see trolling liberal campuses with speaking dates). He puts Flake’s blistering criticism of Trump down to a cynicism: an unpopular conservative trying to parlay anti-Trump rhetoric into media attention. Maybe he’s right; maybe he’s projecting.
Extract “So here’s the most plausible reading of Flake’s decision to leave the Senate and blast everybody on the way out: he was unpopular, he was going to leave anyway, and he saw an opportunity to parlay his sincere anti-Trumpism into a lucrative new role as the chief of the anti-Trump Republican resistance – or at least a slot on MSNBC. Breitbart and Trump both have an interest in playing up Flake’s same angle: that they are responsible for his ouster, and that they have erased him from history. And the media have an interest in suggesting the same thing: that Flake is a hero ousted from a broken party, with Trump and Breitbart as the joint villains.”
Jeff Flake Is a Casualty of Collectivist Conflict
Publication Reason
Author Matt Welch is editor-at-large at libertarian mothership Reason and previously served as its editor-in-chief.
Why you should read Welch’s “day two” take uses the Flake reactions to diagnose the broader pathologies of US political discourse. He thinks that the PC boundary policing of the left and the trollish sensibilities of the right are mutually dependent, but that neither leaves room for a conservative truth-teller like Flake. It’s as good a stab at the dynamics of online political discussion as any others we’ve seen this year, not least for its implicit admission that much of what happens on the right is content-free, empty transgression.
Extract “The Velvet Rope Left is forever policing the boundary between permissible and disqualifying behavior, language, and political positions (luckily for the likes of Bill Maher, those who are good on the latter are granted leeway on the former, particularly when the usually disqualifying language is used against people with bad politics). The Troll Right is forever treating that boundary like an arbitrage opportunity for selling books at CPAC.”
Jeff Flake Retirement ‘Another Scalp’ for Bannon
Publication Breitbart
Author Tony Lee is not an especially notable Breitbart author, but who knows, if he keeps writing laudatory articles about Steve Bannon he may go far.
Why you should read Lee flatters his boss – possibly on his boss’s direct instructions – claiming that Bannon’s endorsement of Flake’s conservative primary opponent was all it took for the senator to hang up his spurs. This was published alongside an article that avoided weighing Flake’s criticisms of Trump by simply attacking him for legally representing immigrants.
Extract “Flake announced his retirement a week after Bannon and Laura Ingraham campaigned in Arizona for conservative Senate candidate Kelli Ward. Polls have indicated that Flake would have likely lost in his own primary had he chosen to run for re-election.”
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