Mark Sanford, who committed the unpardonable sin of speaking against the current occupant of the White House while being Republican, just lost his Congressional seat to an opponent that Trump endorsed.
In an interview that will air Sunday on “Face the Nation,” he explains why we cannot expect a critical mass of Republicans to stop this President from denigrating our intelligence agencies, undermining the rule of law, destroying our oldest alliances or ending the assault on basic human rights when asylum seekers reach out to the United States.
The reason is craven and pathetic.
Sanford, a frequent critic of Trump who lost his primary this week to pro-Trump challenger Katie Arrington, suggested there's a simple, unspoken principle in Congress that enables his party's hands-off approach toward Trump: "What you do as an elected official is … an old-time senator told me years ago, the name of the game is staying in the game," Sanford said.
The reason I’m so outspoken on this now is there is no seeming consequence to the president and lies. And if we accept that as a society, it is going to have incredibly harmful consequences in the way that we operate going forward based on the construct of the founding fathers.”
So the party of alleged Family Values, that supposedly defends the lives of children, will say nothing as more than 2000 children have been forcibly separated from their parents.
So the party of the heartland, real America and the last defenders of democracy will do nothing as their leader rejects and demeans our closest friends and gushes over tyrants like Putin and Kim.
Why support a recreational liar and underminer of American democracy?
For the same reason that the majority of the American press does not have the courage to call out this president as passionately as our comics do.
To stay in the Game.
Our lives are not a game. The character of our nation, as expressed through our policies, is not a game. Our democratic ideals are not a game.
Right now the nation’s soul is being forcibly separated from our stated values. We have been and are currently under assault by a hostile foreign power that is undermining our elections and a hostile President that is undermining our democracy, our culture and our future.
Complicit Republicans and their complicit voters are not a loyal opposition at this critical moment. They are a threat and we must outvote them everywhere, every time, in every election, whether its school boards, statehouses or the White House.
Because they do not care about whether or not they are ruining the country and the world for decades to come. They care about ruining the day of a liberal. They care about winning the Game.
But this is not a game.