Republican Civil War: While Charles Schumer and the #SalonHot25 Mourn the Retirement of Jeff Flake, Real Conservatives Point Out His Habit of Carrying Liberal Water

This guy, Jason Johnson, is a former Ted Cruz strategist, and now is at an outfit called J2 communications.

He posted a series of tweets discussing the #SalonHot25's/Weekly Standard's/Chuck Schumer's favorite liberalitarian Senator.

1) Tempting to comment on Flake’s floor speech. Instead, offering context on his view of “governing” by highlighting a few of his votes.

2) Jeff Flake was 1 of 10 Republican senators who voted to confirm Loretta Lynch for Attorney General

3) Flake voted to fund President Obama’s unconstitutional executive amnesty.

4) Flake voted against Sen. Mike Lee’s 1st Amendment Defense Act

5) Flake voted for Obama’s $1.1 trillion Cromnibus 2015 spending bill

6) Flake voteed to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank

7) Flake voted for S.2114 which increased Russia’s power at the International Monetary Fund

8) Flake voted for a CLEAN debt limit suspension (2014)

9) Flake was 1 of 11 Republican senators who voted to confirm Janet Yellen

10) Flake voted for the Ryan-Murray budget which lifted spending caps & raised fees (taxes) in exchange for promises of future spending cuts

11) Flake voted for the Gang of 8 amnesty bill

12) Flake voted for the post-Newtown gun grab

13) Flake voted AGAINST The Defund Obamacare Act of 2013 (S.1292)

14) Flake voted to increase debt by $900 billion in exchange for the promise of discretionary cuts in the future (2011)

15) Flake preferred John Kasich over Cruz or Trump in the 2016 GOP Primary.

The liberal wing of the "conservative" movement has the sadz about this, claiming that we lost a "libertarian" voice and a staunch advocate of limited government.

How is the guy voting repeatedly for huge omnibus spending bills and clean (no strings attached) debt increases a fighter for limited government?

The guy who fought for the Import-Export bank and for the Newton gun grab is a "libertarian"?

At what point do the #SalonHot25/Weekly Standard/etc. drop the pose of pretending they're SUPER-DUPER Conservatives, which is why they're always attacking us, and just admit the obvious truth -- they're left-leaning Rockefeller Republicans who prefer their conservatism, if at all, to be in the form of rhetoric in campaigns, and not in the form of any actual real-world policy expression?

@Drew_McCoy -- the coblogger formerly known as "DrewM." -- posted this:

Something I don't think enough professional Republicans understand/appreciate about the frustration with guys like Flake...

He and other Republicans never talk about liberals, hardcore lefty types, the way they do about parts of the GOP coalition they don't like.

You may say that the parts of the GOP they/you don't like are worse than anything on the left, ok. But that's not going to move your voters.

Flake is on MSNBC right now saying it's wrong for the GOP to talk about cultural issues. That's not something a Democrat would ever say.
_
There are a lot of GOP/GOP leaners who see an onslaught from the left, which Democrat electeds gleefully participate in and then they see...

the GOP not just fail to push back but to join in saying pushing back is just not what the right people do.

People want the party they support to support them. Right or wrong a LOT of Republicans don't see the GOP politicians supporting them.

The current GOP leadership class has made it clear they aren't interested in those fights. Fair enough.

But don't be upset when those people going seeking someone who will.

It's supply and demand.

I'm not arguing either side is right or wrong (I'm sympathetic to both) but unless and until people accept the parties are coalitions and

everyone sees they are getting a reasonable return on investment...here we are.

My guess is, it's too late though.

Of course, I was SCREAMING about this 10 years ago and no one listened to me but that's on y'all not me.

But no one wanted to give a little so now we have a death match.

No my monkeys, not my circus.

I've been saying that for a long time too (though I was reading Drew and talking to him on podcasts, so I may have just been influenced by him). But I began to see what we now call "the Establishment" preached the importance of coalition politics during voting season, and then entirely forgot about coalition politics during governing season, giving the Corporate Class/Rockefeller Republicans all that they wanted (corporate favors) and nothing that they didn't (any icky conservative "social" policy), treating the actual base like whores they just fucked when they needed a quick release.

Every two years they'd give us the 2am "U up?" sext and then forget all about us the morning after the election.

Both sides, or rather all factions (as there are more than two sides) need to get something out of the deal. One faction can't get everything, or else the other factions get resentful and, ultimately -- mutinous.

Drew adds:

And don't tell me the professional GOP wing are the adults in the room.

They ran on the idea that ObamaCare was destroying the country. They then walked away from it in months after winning.

How the hell can you do that and expect people to say, "yeah, you guys are worth following and tying our fate to".

Not going to lie, of course I take pleasure in being proven right. But this is scary shit.

Welcome to the mutiny, Ye Traitorous, Cowardly Captains.

Ye will be made to walk the plank. It might not right the ship, but at least we'll have the pleasure of being rid of you.

Oh, and enjoy this clip of Laura Ingraham noting, correctly, that Jeff Flake's speech could have just as easily been given by Charles Schumer or Nancy Pelosi.

Obviously true, given that Charles Schumer praised his very good ally Jeff Flake, saying "he will be missed."

An extra vote for Democrats on all the tough votes-- yeah, I'll say you'll miss him all right.

What would Charles Schumer do without all of his Corkers, Collinses, and Cornyns, his McCains, McConnells, and Murkowskis?

There is no more useful soldier than one you've positioned inside the enemy camp, let alone one you've placed in the enemy's command structure.

Update: Good Ben Domenech piece about the Legacy Republicans who can't change their corporate/establishment stripes.

He includes this fine tribute from that most super-duper libertarian/conservative institution, CNN:

Yes, when CNN's political director is praising a nominal "Republican's" speech as "historic," you can read that to mean "supportive of the progressive establishment's narrative and political agenda."

Out with the old. In with the... whoever. I don't care. But out with the old.

More: You won't believe this, but all the leftwing Journ0Listers are somehow all saying the same thing, yet again:

posted by Ace at 08:30 PM

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