Conscience of a Conservative: A Rejection of Destructive Politics and a Return to Principle

Senator Jeff Flake dedicates this book to Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, who campaigned boisterously for president in 1964. Flake has taken this book’s title from Barry Goldwater’s book by the same title.The Senator begins with a story about how President Richard Nixon allegedly set out to scare the Soviet Union in October 1969 by orbiting our nuclear bombers around the Soviet Union. He uses the Nixon angle to allege that Trump is even crazier than Nixon was, and that if Trump’s brand of populism is not halted, it will be the end of the Republican Party:=====Any honest assessment of where we are as a party, without a major course correction, we are simply on the way out. The demographic picture of America is rapidly changing, and we have to change with it. George W. Bush got 56 percent of the white vote, and won. Mitt Romney got 59 percent of the white vote, and lost. lost. Every four years in this country, the electorate gets about two percentage points less white; as an increasingly old and increasingly white party, we are skidding with each passing election toward irrelevance in terms of appealing to a broad electorate.We knew all of this before the last election, but we quickly set it aside for the sugar high of populism, nativism, and demagoguery. The crash from this sugar high will be particularly unpleasant. But it’s deeper than that. We have given in to the politics of anger—the belief that riling up the base can make up for failed attempts to broaden the electorate. These are the spasms of a dying party. Anger and resentment and blaming groups of people for our problems might work politically in the short term, but it’s a dangerous impulse in a pluralistic society, and we know from history that it’s an impulse that, once acted upon, never ends well.=====I began to wonder if Flake, born in 1962, actually knows very much about Barry Goldwater, because Goldwater acted far crazier than either Nixon or Trump. Goldwater’s infamous remark on dealing with the Soviets was: “We should lob one (a thermonuclear warhead) into the men’s room of the Kremlin.”Another of Goldwater’s frothy brainwaves was that: “The country would be better off if we could saw the Eastern Seaboard (i.e. Liberal New York and New England) off and let it float out to sea.”Goldwater campaigned against the Civil Rights Acts, which liberated African-Americans from state-sponsored segregation, discrimination, and denial of voting rights. He was as out of touch with public opinion as a candidate could possibly be.Democratic President Lyndon Johnson smashed Goldwater in the 1964 election. LBJ was re-elected in the greatest popular vote landslide in all of U.S. history. Goldwater barely carried his own home state of Arizona. The Democrats gained 37 seats in the Congress, reaching the incredible high water mark of 295 seats in the House, and adding to their 2/3rds majority in the Senate. It was perhaps the most staggering defeat in the history of the Republican Party.Goldwater himself survived. He was an amiable fellow, and once the pressure of running for president was over he returned to the Senate where he became a voice of small-government conservatism. His national ambitions were finished, but Ronald Reagan’s were begun when Reagan gave the keynote speech at the Republican National Convention, launched his political career that would take him to the Governor’s Mansion in California and then to the White House. Richard Nixon then stepped up to the plate in the Congressional elections of 1966 and the presidential election of 1968, recovering the Republican Party’s fortunes. Reagan’s ascent followed Nixon’s. Against all odds, the Republican Party became a competitive party, and then the the majority party. Goldwater’s legacy was that he killed off the Establishment Wing of the Republican Party by defeating New York’s Senator Nelson Rockefeller in the nomination fight.Goldwater’s slaying of the Republican Establishment of his day, combined with his outrageously loony remarks, sound exactly like the Donald Trump of today. So why does Flake adore Goldwater and hate Trump?Perhaps Flake is not old enough to remember much about Goldwater, and is remembering the legend, and not the man. Or perhaps Flake remembers the private side of Goldwater, which shone late in his long life. Goldwater was so amiable that even the Liberal media that hated his guts when he ran for president in 1964 came to admire his good humor near the end of his life in the early 1980s. He was certainly an engaging personality who charmed Conservatives as well as Liberals with his whacky Western humor.Nonetheless, Goldwater was regarded as a cantankerous, dangerous candidate who wrecked the Republican Party during the presidential election of 1964. My father, a lifelong Republican, who had campaigned for Richard Nixon in 1960, voted for Lyndon Johnson in 1964. The only difference between Goldwater’s abrasive campaign and Donald Trump’s is that Trump won and Goldwater lost.Aside from despising Trump, Flake is an open-borders, free-trade Republican. Being raised on an Arizona ranch, perhaps is unable to understand the wreck and ruin that free trade has inflicted upon the people of the Industrial States north of the Ohio River, in the thousand mile “Rust Belt” from the Delaware River in Pennsylvania out to the Des Moines River in Iowa. This is a region of 60 million people and 90 or so electoral votes. The voters are hopping mad that their livelihoods were wrecked by free trade agreements that sent their jobs overseas, and by open borders that undercut their ability to earn a living wage. IMO the Republicans would have been shellacked in these states in 2016 if anybody other than Trump had been the Republican nominee.For the record, I have voted for Reagan twice, George H.W. Bush twice, Bob Dole, “W” Bush twice, McCain, Obama (in 2012) and Trump. My Dad, a moderate Republican, campaigned for Richard Nixon in 1960. He taught me, “Vote for the best candidate, not the party line.” He voted for LBJ in ’64 because he felt that Goldwater was stark raving mad. He later regretted his vote for LBJ, but I doubt he would ever have voted for Goldwater. At any rate, I’ve voted straight Republican except in 2012, when I felt that Obama was the superior candidate. I was in tune with my fellow voters in Michigan and Florida who also voted Obama in 2012 and Trump in 2016.I’m married into an all-Hispanic family, so no "racist xenophobia" as Flake calls it from me. I have owned an international business that developed trade-management systems in the USA, Canada, Europe, Asia, South America, and Middle East. I know about immigration and trade issues, and I am not fooled by the open-borders and free trade people who intentionally misrepresent the alleged benefits of both. SOME immigration and SOME trade, on very specific conditions, are beneficial for the USA. Free trade and open borders are not.I’m also favorably inclined toward Conservative Republicans. My current congressman is a Republican Freedom Caucus Member. I’ve corresponded with him a couple times and told him that I respected him for voting his conscience. I like Rand Paul, even though some of his positions strike me as unrealistically Libertarian. But he’s a great personality, and a committed Conservative, and I would surely vote for him if he were my Senator.As for Senator Flake, I didn’t know anything about him, so I wanted to glean his thoughts by reading this book. My take is that he’s a principled senator, with a view towards serving his constituents' best interests, but living on another planet from us Trump voters. However, even though I disagree with him on trade and immigration, I know I can count on him to be a Republican ally on our traditional agendas of modestly downsizing government spending --- by making government operate more efficiently with a narrower focus --- and reforming our tax code on a revenue-neutral basis by lowering rates while eliminating special interest loopholes.

At last, a brief book that is a worthy addition to Edmund Burke's 1790 classic'The Evils of Revolution' in which Burke asked, "What is liberty without wisdom, and withoutvirtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils." Early in the book, Flake asserts, "My point being: I am a conservative. We desperately need to get back to the rigorous andfact-based arguments that made us conservatives in the first place." This bookis a plea for the return of political wisdom, virtue and decency. It means, even though he has alwaysbeen a conservative Republican, he has nothing but contempt for the narcissist bully called DonaldTrump. Instead, Flake advocates an American political agenda that always honours the tolerance,multiplicity and passionate differences of all. Flake doesn't offer a partisan political screech. Instead, he writes a thoughtful expression of basicand wholly admirable conservative principles (some with which I heartily disagree). In addition to hiseloquent defence of decency in politics, it is a plea for mutual consideration, compromise and respect for people with different opinions, outlooks and backgrounds. There is a reason America has two major political parties and multiple local factions - -it's because no one person or one agenda or one opinion is always perfect, or sometimes even close to perfect. Flake citeshis own errors as examples. Democracy is not one idea, one leader, one state. Instead, it is tolerance,intelligent debate and rational compromise. His values are from being one of 11 children in his family, growing up on the F-BarRanch near Snowflake. Yes, the name of the town is from his great-great-grandfather and that ofErastus Snow, the local Mormon apostle. Instead of inheriting a fortune, he explains, ". . . when you're a kid on a cattle ranch, youwork." It also gave him a sense of practical humour, ". . . the initiation for new girlfriends wasalways taking them out to witness the pregancy testing of cows or the castration of bulls." Ranch life is tough, practical and honest. It's the spirit that created this book, just as itmotivates his life and the writing of this book. When New Yorkers are submerged in western ranchlife, the impovement can produce presidents such as Teddy Roosevelt. (If you have doubts - - readSandra Day O'Connor's 'Lazy B' biography, a classic introduction to authentic ranch life and an outstanding career.) It's a dangerous book. Political partisans will hate it, because Flake insists there is goodin people who do not seek to boss others around and instead choose to respect the opinions and values ofothers. In these times, it's a purely "maverick" view in terms of Flake's passionate advocacy of mutual respect andcompromise; in eloquence, it is a timely plea for the end of "all-or-nothing" trash politics of the lastseveral decades; in impact, it advocates a return to basic decency in politics. One small quidnuncian quibble: The book should have been called 'Conscience of aMaverick' - - because it would so perfectly reflect the values of Arizona politicians who make thestate stand out as the "Maverick State.' There's a big difference between being a 'maverick' instead ofmerely 'one of the sheep.' On a personal note, despite some basic political differences, Flake makes me proud that I live in Arizona.

A thoughtful and probing search into what has gone wrong in US politics and how to fix it. The book is a firm rebuke to both populism and destructive partisanship. This is a badly needed warning.Flake's approach to immigration is fairly relaxed, recalling his own experience of working on a ranch and the help provided there. He feels that when borders are relaxed migrants are less fearful about being denied entry to the USA and often leave when there's no work to return back to their families in Mexico. Flake writes a little about the founding principles of America, the need to reject strife and xenophobia. The book finishes with a quote from Ronald Reagan, it's pretty clear this is the kind of politics Flake hopes the republican party will return to.

A refreshing, honest and sensible analysis of Trump politics by a Republican senator who should run for president!Paolo De Rosa, Lutry, Switzerland

I bought this book without really looking at the description because who would create a book in a similar style as the Barry Goldwater book with the exact same name- Senator Jeff Flake that's who. I didn't know who Jeff Flake was before I bought this book but when it arrived I was quite confused. I will probably read this book as it seems to be a short read but honestly name your book something else.

It is a great book. An easy read. I read in one afternoon.

The Conservatism sen. Jeff Flakes defends doesn't not seem to have a lot in common with that of the movement's patron saints (e.g. Kirk, Buckley, Strauss, even Reagan). It is somewhat a kind of mild Libertarianism?