Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., is no moderate. He is a conservative through and through. He was a Never-Trumper who voted for the failed health care bill.  

Flake is not perfect, and there is not a lot that we might agree on. Despite this, I wish Flake would stay in the Senate.  

When he stood up on Tuesday to announce his resignation, his speech was filled with words that a lot of Americans probably relate to about the state of politics. He quoted Roosevelt; he called for American politics to look sympathetically out to the world, rather than inwardly.  

Flake pointed out the dangers of standing complicity by while the divisive politics of the day, headed by an equally dangerous president, normalized and effected change in America for years to come.  

Flake finished on a note of hope.

“This spell will eventually break,” he said.

So why aren’t you running for reelection, Flake?

In the flurry of interviews he conducted after his announcement, Flake gave the same answer. In order to win, he would have to run a campaign he wouldn’t be proud of. He would have to cozy up to a fractured and ineffectual Republican Party or to the incompetent and dangerous president.   

If what Flake said in his speech and wrote in his book is true, he sees this era of politics as being dangerous to the future of the country. This danger is not mitigated when members of the Senate, who are willing to stand up to the President, step down. In 2019, two of the most prominent anti-Trump members of the Republican Party will be leaving the Senate. These men — Sens. Flake and Bob Corker, R-Tenn., have stood up to Trump and his policies on various occasions.  

My problem is not that these men are conservative Republicans, or that I might disagree with their ideologies. These senators leave much to be desired.  

Corker can slam Trump on Twitter all he wants, but he still refuses to say whether he would trust Trump with the nuclear codes. Corker’s moves at the moment seem to self-aggrandizing, rather than addressing the problem he seems to think is so dangerous — the president himself.

In just more than a year, these senators will be out of office, with their seats potentially filled by candidates that Steve Bannon could have put forward.  

By not running for re-election, Flake is sending the following message. That our politics are so messed up at the moment, there is no way to win if you are a voice calling for a return to legislative discourse. The rational voices of politics will get pushed out, and this isn’t worth fighting against.  

The spell won’t be broken if those with the voices of reason leave our institutions after speaking out against what they disagree with. Politics aren’t changed when moderates leave the game. It is changed when people use their platform for as long as they can to point out the things which Flake is saying — this is not normal, our children will scrutinize this, and our country depends on us.

I hope these senators will use the rest of their time in the Senate to practice what they preach, and in that time, other members of Congress might be inspired to speak out and hold their ground — to break the spell.