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Lest we be confused, courage is not speaking loudly to your voting base about what they want to hear.
Courage is telling your base something it might not want to hear when it would be easier to stay silent or bend with the wind. Courage is sticking to core principles — even when you know it might cost you in a primary. Courage is advocating for the most vulnerable because their rights are the most easily trampled.
In these first ugly, chaotic days of Donald J. Trump’s presidency, House Speaker Joe Straus and U.S. Rep. Will Hurd have been true profiles in courage.
Republicans, each has spoken against two of Trump’s most disturbing executive orders: Building that “beautiful” wall between us and Mexico, and the “temporary” ban on refugees from around the world and immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries.
“We all want to prevent those who may wish us harm from entering our country, but it is important that we do so in a way that is consistent with the principles of this country,” Straus said in his statement on the immigration ban. “I am concerned about sending the incorrect message that we are at war with any religion.”
Principles, he said. Don’t compromise American principles out of fear.
Hurd, who served in the CIA for nearly 10 years, slammed the immigration ban as “the ultimate display of mistrust.” One that will erode the faith of our allies, especially Muslims aiding our soldiers, and endanger American troops abroad.
“A target has been placed on their backs by increasing tensions in an already volatile region,” he said of our military.
On that “beautiful” border wall, potentially paid with a tariff on Mexican goods, which means paid by us, they were equally steady.
Straus focused on our mutual economy. “The United States and Mexico have a productive economic partnership that is especially good for Texas and San Antonio,” he said in a statement. “The people of our state benefit greatly from trade with Mexico and from our cooperation on issues such as homeland security and counter-terrorism.”
Hurd focused on security and spending, “Building a wall is the most expensive and least effective way to secure the border,” he said in a statement. He later doubled down on National Public Radio, dissing the wall as “the wrong way to do it.”
“Let’s use a mix of technology,” he said. “It’s going to be significantly cheaper than building a wall. Let’s focus on drug traffickers, you know, kingpin human smugglers.”
Notice, he was specific. He didn’t blanket a whole group of people in fear.
Hurd and Straus will likely catch hell from darker corners for espousing common sense and conviction — and bucking the president and leader of their party. Their words stand in sharp relief against the reticence of other Republicans to speak up when it counts.
The Texas Tribune recently captured this limp moment for tough-talking, freedom-loving Texas pols with the headline “Texas Congressional delegation largely silent on Trump travel ban.”
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, who has droned on and on about liberty and national security, whose father was a refugee, suddenly can’t find his voice on this travel ban. John Cornyn, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, appears to be in the dark groping for a flashlight.
Maybe they should look west to their Senate colleagues, Arizona Republicans John McCain and Jeff Flake, for guidance.
“Enhancing long term national security requires that we have a clear-eyed view of radical Islamic terrorism without ascribing Islamic terrorist views to all Muslims,” Flake said in a statement.
In a joint statement with U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, McCain called the travel ban a “self-inflicted wound in the fight against terrorism.”
“And we should not turn our backs on those refugees who have been shown through extensive vetting to pose no demonstrable threat to our nation, and who have suffered unspeakable horrors, most of them women and children,” they said.
It’s easy to go on in this manner of compare and contrast. But my point is this: Long after the next election, we all will see clearly who bent with the wind, stayed silent or traded in fear, jeopardizing our security, economy and values.
So, too, we will know who looked outward to the world instead of closing inward, who cautioned against intolerance and chaos, and who spoke about fearful issues with nuance, conviction and moral authority.
Hurd and Straus spoke up when it would have been easier to stay quiet. That’s what leadership and courage are all about.
jbrodesky@express-news.net
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