President Donald Trump and Senator Jeff Flake (R-Arizona)
We are in a war. The war is between Republicans, an authoritarian party, and Democrats, a liberal party. Right wing authoritarians are coming for our democracy with jack boots and MAGA caps. Republicans want to overturn our democratic republic and replace it with an authoritarian regime. Democrats, on the other hand, want to maintain our democratic republic.
Jeff Flake is oblivious to this war. He seems to believe there are two equivalent parties, polarized only in their policy preferences. Efforts to “cleanse” the FBI and the Justice Department and to “purge” government agencies are not symptoms of polarization. They are the destruction of the pillars of our political system. In his book “The Conscience of a Conservative,” Flake acknowledges that the Republican Party has violated its principles by putting party over country and embracing a cult of personality. It is not the Democratic Party that has abandoned its egalitarian principles or raised an authoritarian personality over democratic norms. But, Jeff Flake and others seem to ignore differences between the parties and what those differences mean for the continuation of a democratic republic.
Jeff Flake is oblivious to this war. He seems to believe there are two equivalent parties, polarized only in their policy preferences. Efforts to “cleanse” the FBI and the Justice Department and to “purge” government agencies are not symptoms of polarization. They are the destruction of the pillars of our political system. In his book “The Conscience of a Conservative,” Flake acknowledges that the Republican Party has violated its principles by putting party over country and embracing a cult of personality. It is not the Democratic Party that has abandoned its egalitarian principles or raised an authoritarian personality over democratic norms. But, Jeff Flake and others seem to ignore differences between the parties and what those differences mean for the continuation of a democratic republic.
