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On decency
Oct. 25th, 2017 06:58 pmSo Senator Jeff Flake has joined the Speak Truth to Trump Club, along with Robert Corker, John McCain, and a few other Republicans -- all lame ducks for one reason or another who have nothing to lose from Trump's inevitable personal attacks on them. In particular, his Washington Post Op-Ed quotes Joseph Welch's famous words to Senator Joseph McCarthy: “Until this moment, senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty, or your recklessness.... You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”
Those words are, of course, eminently applicable to Donald Trump, but they would roll off his back like water from a duck.
Because Donald Trump has never even aspired to decency. In his world, "decency" is the excuse losers give for why they lost. And given the choice between winning and being "decent", he'll take winning every time.
I have seldom agreed with Jeff Flake, Robert Corker, or John McCain on any significant policy issue, but I have one thing in common with them: we actually believe in the stuff they taught us in school about democracy. That elected officials, at least in theory, are public servants, that effective government requires compromise and rational debate, that people of different political leanings can find areas of common interest, that nobody is above the law.
Those words are, of course, eminently applicable to Donald Trump, but they would roll off his back like water from a duck.
Because Donald Trump has never even aspired to decency. In his world, "decency" is the excuse losers give for why they lost. And given the choice between winning and being "decent", he'll take winning every time.
I have seldom agreed with Jeff Flake, Robert Corker, or John McCain on any significant policy issue, but I have one thing in common with them: we actually believe in the stuff they taught us in school about democracy. That elected officials, at least in theory, are public servants, that effective government requires compromise and rational debate, that people of different political leanings can find areas of common interest, that nobody is above the law.
