People on the sensible-shoes left, the lying-to-themselves center, and the semi-rational right are praising two Republican senators today for speaking honestly about the threat that President Donald Trump poses to the nation and the world. In and of itself, in a vacuum, it's pretty cool to see Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee and Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona go all in on calling out Trump for being dumb, divisive, and dangerous.
Corker, who previously had said that Trump is "crazier than a shit fight in a monkey house" (or words to that effect), was on several morning news programs today to say that Trump is a fucking liar who's gonna get us all killed. More precisely, on CNN, he said, "But I think at the end of the day, when his term is over, I think the debasing of our nation, the constant non-truth telling, and the -- just the name calling, the things that I think the debasement of our nation will be what he'll be remembered most for." It barely needs to be mentioned that Corker doesn't think that Trump is a good role model for children, unless, you know, that child wants to grow up to be an asshole. Corker, by the way, has already announced he's not running for reelection in 2018.
Then, this afternoon, Flake got up on the Senate floor to announce he won't seek a second term basically because Trump's a dick and his voters are a bunch of goddamn nutzoids: "There is an undeniable potency to a populist appeal – but mischaracterizing or misunderstanding our problems and giving in to the impulse to scapegoat and belittle threatens to turn us into a fearful, backward-looking people." To put that in non-Senate-floor-ese, Trump's a lying douche who doesn't give a shit about ripping the country apart for his amusement, and a bunch of yahoos love him for the lulz.
In fact, Flake asserted that Republicans should stop being such dumbasses about Trump: "With respect and humility, I must say that we have fooled ourselves for long enough that a pivot to governing is right around the corner, a return to civility and stability right behind it. We know better than that. By now, we all know better than that." Of course, it would have been more potent a speech had Flake had the balls to say Trump's name.
So, yeah, relative to the silent complicity of most Republicans, it's refreshing to see two well-respected and pretty damn conservative senators state the obvious.
But so fucking what? They're both leaving. Neither is willing to get into the trenches and fight. One can imagine they're sick of getting Pepe the Frog death threats. Still, they're bailing. Other than Corker making a vague promise that "we're going to be doing some hearings on some of the things that he purposely is breaking down, relationships we have around the world that have been useful to our nation," they aren't pledging to do a goddamn thing to stop Trump, even though, according to them, he's a potential despot who stokes fear and anger, a lying ignoramus who has no desire to understand issues that involve the life and death of millions of people.
What could they do? If they were really brave, they'd say, "Yeah, you know what? Fuck the Republican Party." And they'd bail, offer to caucus with the Democrats for the rest of their terms, even if it defies their core ideology (as if supporting Trump didn't), and get Susan Collins or Lisa Murkowski to do the same. Thus that changes the leadership of the Senate and puts a halt to Trump's agenda and a mighty big fucking check on his power. Obviously, Republicans aren't gonna do anything about Trump. Otherwise, senator after senator would have risen after Flake to say they agree. If Republicans are the cowardly shitheels that Flake described, why stick with them?
Or they could have called for impeachment proceedings to begin. They could have said that the president has committed many high crimes and misdemeanors, and, c'mon, people, we fuckin' impeached Clinton for lying about a blow job. What the fuck is wrong with us now?
Not only are Corker and Flake moral cowards on this count, but, fer fuck's sake, they both eagerly support every effort by Trump, having both voted for gutting the Affordable Care Act, for the cruel budget agreement, and for every shitty administrator and judge Trump has nominated. Perhaps we should hold off on the hosannas until they fucking do something to prove they hold the beliefs they speak of. Maybe we can stop giving them rhetorical hand jobs because they said shit that we like.
Because right now, it's just words. And, sorry, that's as good as nothing, as good as a series of tweets into the abyss.
