Tuesday, Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake’s retirement speech was actually a call to action to fellow Republicans — against Trump. In his stirring speech (link to the entire address below) Flake pleaded with his party to wake up and take action, saying ‘you can’t continue to just remain silent’ about Trump’s politics and behavior.
“We must never regard as ‘normal’ the regular and casual undermining of our democratic norms and ideals. We must never meekly accept the daily sundering of our country — the personal attacks, the threats against principles, freedoms, and institutions, the flagrant disregard for truth or decency, the reckless provocations, most often for the pettiest and most personal reasons, reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with the fortunes of the people that we have all been elected to serve.”
As the Senate watched in stunned silence, Flake passionately made the plea:
“It is often said that children are watching. Well, they are. And what are we going to do about that? When the next generation asks us, Why didn’t you do something? Why didn’t you speak up? — what are we going to say?”
Questioned after his speech, the retiring Arizona Senator rallied the troops, saying ‘”A lot of my colleagues share the concerns I raised on the floor,” Flake said on “New Day” Wednesday morning. “I think more of them will speak out in the future.”
Will this change the dialogue? Will more Republicans be heroes and speak up? Time will tell.
Here’s Flake’s entire speech. You’ll want to read the whole thing.