PD Editorial: GOP senators making the case against Trump

Bob Corker. John McCain. Jeff Flake.

The list of Republican senators who can no longer countenance the antics of President Donald Trump keeps growing.

This isn’t “fake news,” a “wacky congresswoman” or protests from California liberals.

These are unequivocally conservative members of the president’s own party who are no longer willing to sit idly by as Trump feuds with Gold Star families, shreds international agreements, undercuts his own Cabinet and generally degrades the office and, by extension, the nation.

Flake, whose post-election book describing “the spasms of a dying party” is a forceful indictment of Trump’s GOP, followed up Tuesday with an extraordinary speech on the Senate floor, where he announced plans to step down at the end of his term.

“I will not be complicit,” the Arizonan said.

“We must stop pretending that the conduct of some in our executive branch are normal,” Flake said. “They are not normal. Reckless, outrageous and undignified behavior has become excused and countenanced as telling it like it is, when it is actually just reckless, outrageous and undignified. And when such behavior emanates from the top of our government, it is something else. It is dangerous to a democracy.”

Flake’s remarks come just three weeks after Corker, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, dismissed the Trump White House as “an adult day-care center” and called on the president’s national security team to provide some badly needed adult supervision. The Tennessee senator followed up this week, saying Trump is “an utterly untruthful president.”

McCain, also an Arizonan, continues to call Trump out on a host of issues, even as he undergoes treatment for an aggressive form of brain cancer. In a speech last week in Philadelphia, he lambasted the administration’s foreign policy as “half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems.”

It’s worth noting that it was the loss of support from Barry Goldwater and other Republicans during the Watergate scandal that finally ended Richard Nixon’s presidency.

No one expects Donald Trump to step down. We can expect him to unleash another Twitter-storm, this one aimed at Flake, who already has been targeted (along with numerous other Republican senators) by former White House strategist Stephen Bannon.

Trump’s Republican critics recognize that pettiness isn’t principle, insults aren’t policy and results are the product of gathering facts and evidence, openly debating alternatives and seeking compromise when consensus isn’t possible.

Americans expect their government to respect constitutional norms and to deal seriously with health care, the economy and taxes, to be a reliable ally to our friends and avoid needless provocations of our foes around the world.

The Trump administration has come up short on all of those fronts, and there’s no reason to expect that to change. Congress must overcome its own dysfunction and provide the leadership that is lacking at the White House. They could start by listening to Jeff Flake.

“We’re not here to simply mark time,” Flake said Tuesday. “Sustained incumbency is certainly not the point of seeking office, and there are times when we must risk our careers in favor of our principles. Now is such a time.”