Any dissenting voices -- no matter how late or lame -- raised from within the Rethuglican Party / Cult of Trump are welcome, including that of retiring Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, who spoke at the commencement yesterday for the Harvard Law School. Flake, who's sadly voted with neo-fascist bigot Donald "Rump" Trump 84% of the time in the Senate, had some rueful advice for the law school grads:
"[Because] there are times when circumstances may call on you to risk your career in favor of your principles.What Sen. Flake may not want to acknowledge as his career winds down is the fact that Rump is the culmination of decades of Rethuglican political and social dishonesty, bigotry, divisiveness and moral preening. Rump isn't sui generis, but is a product of their nasty DNA, cultivated over decades of the Southern Strategy / hate radio / evangelical charlatans / Tea bagging bigots / corporate greed / war-mongering cowards, and so on. But let's give Flake credit, even if it's late in the game, for seeking to redeem his soul.
But you — and your country — will be better for it. You can go elsewhere for a job, but you cannot go elsewhere for a soul.
Not to be unpleasant, but I do bring news from our nation’s capital. First, the good news: Your national leadership is… not good. At all. Our presidency has been debased by a figure who has a seemingly bottomless appetite for destruction and division and only a passing familiarity with how the constitution works.
And our Article I branch of government, the Congress (that’s me), is utterly supine in the face of the moral vandalism that flows from the White House daily. I do not think that the founders could have anticipated that the beauty of their invention might someday founder on the rocks of reality television, and that the Congress would be such willing accomplices to this calamity. Our most ardent enemies, doing their worst (and they are doing their worst), couldn’t hurt us more than we are hurting ourselves." (emphasis added)
