Jeff Flake: ‘There Is a Sickness In Our System — And It Is Contagious’

To cap off a long day for Republican and American politics, Sen. Jeff Flake is likely to have the last word at least for tonight.

In a new Washington Post op-ed, Sen. Flake further elaborates on his decision to not seek reelection and to publicly oppose President Donald Trump on the floor of the Senate today.

Flake started off his piece by recounting the McCarthy-era story of Joseph Welch, Chief Council of the Army during the McCarthy hearings. Drawing a parallel to his stand today against Trump and his enablers in the GOP, Flake recalled Welch’s shining moment in American history when he asked Sen. Joseph McCarthy “Have you no sense of decency?” to uproarious applause.

With the addition of Flake’s piece today, he made it clear that his comments in front of the Senate today were his attempt to help restore “moral clarity” to not just his party but to his country. Perhaps the most memorable of Flake’s words were when he stated that “There is a sickness in our system — and it is contagious.” He followed that up with a sprited plea:

How many more times will we see moral ambiguity in the face of shocking bigotry and shrug it off?
…
How much more damage to our democracy and to the institutions of American liberty do we need to witness in silence before we count ourselves as complicit in that damage?

Sen. Flake topped this series of questions off with a clear command — “Enough.”

Calling the Trump administration a “trainwreck,” Flake argues that Americans and Republicans can no longer stand idly by. Noting the danger, “The longer we wait, the greater the damage, the harsher the judgment of history.”

From there, Flake brings up that his “worry” drove him to write his upcoming book “Conscience of a Conservative: A Rejection of Destructive Politics and a Return to Principle.” Concluding his article with his decision not seek reelection, Flake promised to ditch the safety net of partisan politics and to only be guided by “the dictates of conscience.”