If I have been critical, it is not because I relish criticizing the behavior of the president of the United States. I’m aware that there’s a segment of my party that believes that anything short of complete and unquestioning loyalty to a president who belongs to my party is unacceptable and suspect. Now, I’m aware that more politically savvy people than I will caution against such talk. Those things are far more important than politics. When we remain silent and fail to act, when we know that silence and inaction is the wrong thing to do because of political considerations, because we might make enemies, because we might alienate the base, because we might provoke a primary challenge, because ad infinitum, ad nauseam, when we succumb to those considerations in spite of what should be greater considerations and imperatives in defense of our institutions and our liberty, we dishonor our principles and forsake our obligations. Of course, we wouldn’t, and we would be wrong if we did. But what happens if ambition fails to counteract ambition? What happens if stability fails to assert itself in the face of chaos and instability? If decency fails to call out indecency? Were the shoe on the other foot, we Republicans - would we Republicans meekly accept such behavior on display from dominant Democrats? “Ambition counteracts ambition,” he wrote. This genius innovation which affirms Madison’s status as a true visionary - and for which Madison argued in Federalist 51 - held that the equal branches of our government would balance and counteract with each other, if necessary. Madison’s doctrine of separation of powers. Here today I stand to say that we would be better served - we would better serve the country - by better fulfilling our obligations under the Constitution by adhering to our Article 1 - “old normal,” Mr. 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. Without fear of the consequences and without consideration of the rules of what is politically safe or palatable, we must stop pretending that the degradation of our politics and the conduct of some in our executive branch are normal. If we simply become inured to this condition, thinking that it is just politics as usual, then heaven help us. We must never allow ourselves to lapse into thinking that that is just the way things are now. None of these appalling features of our current politics should ever be regarded as normal. The reckless provocations, most often for the pettiest and most personal reasons, reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with the fortunes of the people that we have been elected to serve. The personal attacks, the threats against principles, freedoms and institution, the flagrant disregard for truth and decency. We must never regard as normal the regular and casual undermining of our democratic norms and ideals, we must never meekly accept the daily sundering of our country. That we must never adjust to the present coarseness of our national dialogue with the tone set up at the top. In this century, a new phrase has entered the language to describe the accommodation of a new and undesirable order, that phrase being the new normal. It is time for our complicity and our accommodation of the unacceptable to end. Regret for the compromise of our moral authority, and by our, I mean all of our complicity in this alarming and dangerous state of affairs. Regret because of the coarseness of our leadership. Regret because of the indecency of our discourse. Regret because of the state of our disunion, regret because of the disrepair and destructiveness of our politics. It must also be said that I rise today with no small measure of regret. 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. Muscedere, chronicled in column, dies at 95īy our discord and our dysfunction than by our own values and principles, let me begin by noting the somewhat obvious point that these offices that we hold are not ours indefinitely.
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