At this point, Jeff Flake thought it would all be over.
Flake, the former Republican senator for Arizona and an outspoken critic of Donald Trump, admits that he expected the ripple effects on Republican Trump’s loss of the White House to be greater now.
Instead, Flake had to watch while Trump stepped down, but Trumpism refused to disappear across the country. This includes Flake’s home state, where the Republican Party recently censored him alongside the other two most prominent Republicans – Cindy McCain, the widow of the late Senator John McCain, and Doug Ducey, the governor of Arizona.
“I think this fever is going to subside, but it has been slow,” Flake said in an interview with the Guardian. “It has been very slow.”
For much of the Trump administration, Flake was a kind of lonely voice within his party, opposing him first as a rare elected anti-Trump official across the state and then as a member of the Republicans’ club that faced the 45th president just to face the counterattack.
Throughout all of this, Flake hoped that Trump would step down in one way or another, other Republicans would see the same light that he and the opposition to the 45th president would grow. Flake calls this the “migration” of Republicans out of their allegiance to Trump.
“This migration is going to start,” said Flake, laughing. “It’s slow to start.”
Today, the prospects for anti-Trump Republicans may seem clear and bleak. Trump is out of office and elected Republican officials are actively working to move from Trump under the specter of hitting activists within the Republican Party.
Congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois created a political action committee to fight the QAnon movement that saturates the Republican Party. The president of the Republican House conference, Liz Cheney, and almost a dozen other Republicans voted in favor of Trump’s impeachment again.
Other Republicans faced Trump as he spread baseless allegations about electoral fraud after Joe Biden won the presidential election, but before taking office.
But these forces are more of a minor rebellion or insurgency and less of an army involved in inter-party civil war. Anti-Trumpists are growing, but very slowly, admits Flake. Flake thinks that successfully condemning Trump in his impeachment trial would help speed things up.
“I think if there are enough elected officials who say ‘we’re done’, then that’s the limit, we cross the rubric we need to cross and then Trump disappears quickly,” said Flake.
It was not meant to be that way for Flake, a conservative with a libertarian tendency and good-looking soap opera star. He served in the House of Representatives for more than a decade before winning the Senate seat, once held by conservative icon Barry Goldwater, in the then-trusted red state of Arizona. But when Trump’s unlikely presidential candidacy took off, Flake refused to agree with most of his Republican colleagues and line up. In October 2017, he made a speech in which he said he would not run for another term.
“I didn’t want to leave the Senate. I wanted to do at least another semester, ”said Flake. “But the idea of going on stage for a campaign with Donald Trump, laughing at his jokes and looking at my feet while he ridiculed my colleagues – I just couldn’t do it. There is nothing worthwhile. But I look and think about leaving and leaving the party or starting a third party that just doesn’t work – we need two strong parties in this country. I think we’ll be back, I hope so. I want to be part of this. “
Since then, Flake has not shied away from speaking out against Trump and he plans to continue to do so, in addition to some teaching work he is doing at Arizona State University. Flake is also a well-known face in cable news and political reporting.
Flake is also optimistic. He predicted in his interview with the Guardian on Tuesday that extremist Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a defender of the QAnon conspiracy theory, would be stripped of her committee duties, an effective legislative neutralization for any member of Congress. She was – although they were Democrats, not Republicans.
He also doesn’t think Cheney is doomed to lose re-election while the Trumpists seek his ouster. On Wednesday, House minority leader Kevin McCarthy chose to support Cheney in the face of an uproar over his action to help Trump’s impeachment.
“You will have some defining moments here soon with Marjorie Taylor Greene and what they are going to have to do with her and that – maybe it will speed up this game, I think,” said Flake. “I wouldn’t count Liz Cheney here. She has some benefits and bonds that are so important now that she can survive. Maybe Adam Kinzinger too. I’m sure I hope and pray for that. “
Asked if he kept in touch with Cheney or Kinzinger, Flake said no, but said he was talking to some like-minded Republicans.
“Trumpism requires a certain amount of arrogance that you lose when you lose. And he lost, ”said Flake. “In Georgia, he was unable to pull those two senators to the finish line. So yes, I really believe that would be the case and that it would happen much faster if more elected officials said ‘yes, we have to move on.’ I think they’ll get to that point, but man, it’s been slow. “
He also saw promising buds at home. His neighbors in the suburbs of Pheonix, where he lives, displayed Trump flags on his properties. No more.
“In fact, there were two neighbors, one on each side, with Trump flags, both fallen,” said Flake, warning that in other parts of his neighborhood Trump fans are still supporting him.
Recently, Flake and his wife took a long bike ride through the neighborhood and counted Trump’s signs still active. They flinched when they saw signs in houses they knew. They then passed a house with three cars in their garage. When they passed, he shouted ‘thanks for doing what you did. We have to overcome this. ‘”
This surprised Flake, he recalled. He didn’t know the man and assumed that of all the houses he passed, this would be the home of a Trump fan.
“We had a very bright conversation about the future of the party and how he wanted to stay, but it was difficult,” said Flake.