Posted on 01/14/2018 4:21:28 PM PST by Kaslin
U.S. Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) compared President Donald J. Trump’s animus towards the media to totalitarian dictator Joseph Stalin's propaganda on ABC News' ‘This Week’.
While discussing a series of speeches the soon-to-be-retired Senator will be giving over the next few weeks, host George Stephanopoulos read aloud an excerpt from one.
STEPHANOPOULOS: We’ve gotten some excerpts of what you’re planning to say, taking on the president’s comments about calling the press the enemy of the people. And I just want to read a portion of what we’ve had.
It’s a testament to the condition of our democracy that our own president uses words infamously spoken by Joseph Stalin to describe his enemies. It bears noting that so fraught with malice was the phrase enemy of the people that even Nikita Khrushchev forbade it’s use. And of course, the president has it precisely backward. Despotism is the enemy of the people, the free press is the despot’s enemy.
What are you trying to do with these speeches?
FLAKE: Well, I -- what I’m trying to say is, you know, you -- you can talk about crowd size and this is pretty innocuous if there’s a falsehood. But when you reflexively refer to the press as the enemy of the people or fake news, that has real damage. It has real damage to our standing in the world. And I noted how -- how bad it is for a president to -- to take what was popularized by Joseph Stalin, the enemy of the people, to refer to the press.
And then now, today, you have authoritarians across the world using the term fake news to justify cracking down on their opposition or -- or staunch legitimate debate. That’s nothing we should be proud of. And so I’m going to talk about how damaging that is. It’ll be I think on the same day, probably, Wednesday, that the president is giving out some fake news awards. And I -- I just want -- want the president to know that this has real consequences."
As noted by Cortney, Flake's distaste, putting it mildly, of Donald Trump is well documented.
"The hostility between Flake and Trump started when we learned of Flake's "secret" book, "Conscience of a Conservative: A Rejection of Destructive Politics and a Return to Principle," in which he trashed Trump's agenda. The 45th president had a major hand in "compromising" the Republican Party's morals, the politician/author suggested. After the discovery, Trump mocked the senator at a rally in Phoenix."
Previously on 'This Week,' Flake has attacked Trump supports as angry and resentful.
"When you look at some of the audiences cheering for Republicans, sometimes, you look out there and you say, 'those are the spasms of a dying party,' " Flake said on ABC's "This Week."
"When you look at the lack of diversity, sometimes, and it depends on where you are, obviously, but by and large, we're appealing to older white men and there are just a limited number of them, and anger and resentment are not a governing philosophy," he continued.
Flake is a liberal. A leftist. Like so many others in the Republican party.
“The best way to control the opposition is to run it ourselves”- Vladimir Lenin
Flake is an idiot.
The Senator is a deeply ignorant man on this subject. He may know a good deal about some things, but Josef Stalin isn’t one of them.
Thanks for the date update...
“Flake has attacked Trump supports as angry and resentful. “
Sounds like pure projection by this self-distructing jackwagon.
Flake is Benedict Arnold.
Hey Jeff Snowflake, if Trump was like Joseph Stalin you would disappear and Trump would have you edited out of photographs. Learn some history before you run your crybaby dialogue.
Oh Ive known that for a while..Republicans will be fine and dandy with giving up the House AND Senate back to the Democrats..that way they don’t have to actually do anything..they can sit on the sidelines and b*tch about things then cry how they want to be back in power
I hope he gets bit by a rattlesnake! :)
LOL
Flake is an evil idiot. He is mocking the millions of victims of Stalin’s purges.
Somehow Flake has become a snake.
He should bite himself.
They were saying Trump was “literally Hitler” as they did and said things that would have gotten them imprisoned, tortured and killed if he was anything similar to Hitler or Stalin.
So is he a Nazi or a Communist, which is it, I’m confused.
I don’t know why he doesn’t make his point, since he is so politically concerned and self immolate...
That’s why I try avoiding hand-typing the date. The date is definitely today, this year, at 5:00 pm.
Exactly. Eating rats’ entrails, if he’s lucky.
?
The name-calling technique used by Flake and others in the party hopes that their audience will reject Trump instead of looking at the obvious evidence otherwise..... Heck they’re even attacking his supporters! This all just evidences they’re ‘covering’ alot of corruption they don’t want discovered!.. Both here in the states and Internationally.
International leaders who are carrying the same tune are equally afraid they’ll be found out....especially those tied to the Clinton Foundation money laundering machinery.
If Trump were Stalin he’d simply have Flake terminated.....what an idiot to even think people bye his school yard tantrum!
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