OPINION:
Sen. Jeff Flake, part of the emerging breed of American Republican, the one that’s called Democrat, bypassed that whole mainstream media thing and forged a brand new path of blasting President Donald Trump as a subpar leader — by writing a whole book about it.
Right. Why do the 30-second television anti-Trump spot when you can go on for 140 pages?
He does a Democratic heart good, that’s for sure.
Called “Conscience of a Conservative,” Flake rails that Trump’s Twitter messages are “all noise and no signal”; that Trump’s character is “volatile unpredictability,” which is “not a virtue”; and that Trump’s persona during the campaign season was much more reality television than White House ready.
“Far from conservative,” he wrote, “the president’s comportment was rather a study in the importance of conflict in reality television — that once you introduce conflict, you cannot de-escalate conflict. You much continually escalate.”
No doubt Flake would say his book is an insightful peer behind the Trump wall, one that gives readers an insight into his personality and leadership style.
But The New York Times’ book reviewer puts it this way: “No wonder the senator wrote this book in secret. As a Republican member of Congress, he is declaring Trump a domestic and international menace. Other conservatives in the news media and strategist class have been saying just this for well over a year, of course, but they don’t depend on a radicalized base to keep their jobs. Flake is the first elected official to cross this particular rhetorical Rubicon, and he seems to be imploring his colleagues to follow.”
Yes, because that’s what the Republican Party needs — more defectors to the Democratic side.
Flake is out on the wings on this one. The left is going to embrace him. The media is going to find a sudden and massive interest in interviewing him — in obtaining his comments on all-things-Trump. He’ll be the new John McCain — the go-to guy for the left-leaning media when it needs to show non-bias by having a Republican speak. But voters? The people who elected him?
Well now, here’s a clue of how they’ll react. Flake, during his primary, was dubbed “Sanctuary Senator” by his opponent for his amnesty views of immigration. Contrast that with what Trump won on — Obamacare repeal and tightened borders. And there’s your answer. Flake’s book may bring him a shiny moment in the sun with the left. But it’s alienating him with the conservatives who elected Trump. It’s showing him as part and parcel of the elitist and entrenched political class voters railed against in 2016.
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