Jeff Flake, the retiring senator from Arizona, had a few things to say on the Senate floor Tuesday afternoon. What he said will undoubtedly burnish his image, and they will give him the chance to say he stood in at least rhetorical opposition when history judges how the president* completed the longtime conservative project of dismantling the national government of the United States. This was the third time Flake has done this and, I suppose, it’s commendable that he has done so, although I would have preferred he also vote against the attempt to gut the Affordable Care Act, or a few of the egregiously unqualified federal appointees with which this administration* has been larding the federal government and the federal bench.

But you take what you can get, I guess. Even a retiring senator is preferable to the accessorial cowardice of people like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell. But I have a bit of an issue with what surely will be the lasting soundbite from Flake’s Tuesday address, as reported by CNN.

"I have seen the President's most ardent defenders use the now-weary argument that the President's comments were meant as a joke, just sarcasm, only tongue in cheek. But treason is not a punchline, Mr. President."

The problem is that, because of the political base that 40 years of conservative politics have constructed, calling someone treasonous is a punchline. Watch the video of the president*’s speech. That line killed in the hall. Calling Barack Obama a secret Muslim was a punchline. Calling Bill Clinton a murderer was a punchline. It took a concerted effort to build an audience that would find any of that funny. And Jeff Flake’s entire political career was built in the context of the construction of that base.

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And when his campaign for the Senate was in trouble in 2012, when Democratic candidate Richard Carmona was closing in, Flake’s concern for civility in public debate was placed carefully on a shelf for the duration. From The Weekly Standard:

That environment explains the latest ad from the Flake campaign, which features Dr. Cristina V. Beato, the acting assistant secretary of health during Carmona's tenure as surgeon general. Beato alleges that Carmona "pounded" angrily on her door in the middle of the night while she and her family slept…

Jeff Flake is a creature of the same Republican party that produced Donald Trump as a presidential nominee. If he has decided that this president* is the loon too far, that’s very nice for him and will be a great comfort to him in what will be a very lucrative retirement. But the audience that he helped build, and the one that helped him have a career in politics, will still think that this president* is top-of-the-bill hilarious. That took some work.

Oh, and Weepin’ Joe Lieberman is having the feels again, this time in The Hill.

The president’s State of the Union address offered the latest example of civility’s unraveling. Certainly, this wasn’t the first time members of the opposition have behaved in ways that denigrate the respect normally given to the nation’s commander-in-chief. Republicans were guilty during the Obama administration with one congressman memorably interrupting President Obama during a State of the Union speech by shouting that he was a liar. But the blatant disregard for civility this year (Democratic members in the chamber were caught playing games on their smart phones) offered a window into a reality that runs deeper than any breach of decorum.

Shut your bloody gob, a grateful nation explains.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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