Fear of primary challenges silences officeholders against their own party’s excesses

Evidence

Another example of speaking truth comes in the speech we mentioned earlier by Flake, when he condemned both Trump’s behavior and partisan reticence. “It is time for our complicity and our accommodation of the unacceptable to end,” Flake insisted. Invoking the first-person plural, “we,” he refers both to his fellow legislators in general and to his party: “Were the shoe on the other foot, we Republicans—would we Republicans meekly accept such behavior on display from dominant Democrats? Of course, we wouldn’t, and we would be wrong if we did.” He went on, “When we remain silent and fail to act … because we might make enemies, because we might alienate the base, because we might provoke a primary challenge, because ad infinitum, ad nauseam … we dishonor our principles and forsake our obligations.” — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 335

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Fear of primaries drives officials’ conspiracist equivocation; Appointed authority officials are immune to public and electoral pressure — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 4516

Broader Connections

• Fear of primaries drives officials’ conspiracist equivocation #corroborates (0.92)
• Appointed authority officials are immune to public and electoral pressure #contradicts (0.75) — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 4516