Jeff Flake aims to inspire bipartisanship as Harvard resident fellow
Jeff Flake is going to Harvard.
The former Republican senator from Arizona was named Thursday as one of six resident fellows for the upcoming fall semester at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
While at Harvard, Flake will live on the university’s campus, mentor a group of undergraduate students, hold office hours and lead a study group focusing on the importance of bipartisanship in a polarized political era.
“All the incentives right now, particularly with the arrival of social media, drives people to the extremes,” Flake told The Arizona Republic. “The incentives, particularly for elected officials, are to not indicate for a moment that you might be open to persuasion or to new evidence or new information. I think I can add some perspective on how that has created or added to kind of a dysfunctional environment we see right now in Washington, and a way out, perhaps.”
Flake, a vocal critic of President Donald Trump during his single term as senator, said leadership is key to easing the frenzied, often hostile, political climate.
“We have somebody in the White House, the person with the biggest megaphone, seeking every opportunity to divide rather than to unify,” Flake said. "We'll only make the situation better if we lead by example. Right now, there is no currency for bipartisanship. You have to have leaders who are really willing to stake out territory that is not comfortable. But we've got to do it. What choice do we have?
"And I do think that with different leadership, particularly in the White House, we can get there," he added. "We'll become ourselves again."
Flake, who was elected to the Senate in 2013, announced in 2017 that he would not seek a second term, sending a shockwave through Washington, D.C., and his home state of Arizona. In making the announcement, Flake cited a growing divide between his traditional conservative values and those of the Republican Party under Trump.
At the time, Flake, one of only a few outspoken Trump critics on the right, told The Republic that seeking re-election would require him to “believe in positions I don't hold on such issues as trade and immigration, and it would require me to condone behavior that I cannot condone."
After Flake’s announcement, Trump boasted that he had “retired” the senator, adding that, in doing so, he “did the country a great service.”
Trump repeatedly insulted Flake while he was senator, calling him a “Democrat” and “weak on crime & border!”
In addition to Flake, the Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics announced as resident fellows: LaTosha Brown, co-founder of the Black Votes Matter Fund; Alice Stewart, a CNN political commentator and former communications director for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign; Bob Cohn, president of The Atlantic; Isabel de Saint Malo de Alvarado, vice president of the Republic of Panama and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2014 to 2019; and Deesha Dyer, White House social secretary during the final three years of President Barack Obama's administration.
Flake, who last year gave the commencement address at Harvard Law School, said that, as a Republican, he’s heading to what is jokingly called the People’s Republic of Cambridge “with eyes wide open.”
“The institutions of higher learning in the country overwhelmingly lean left,” Flake said. “That's been the case for forever. Other institutions, business organizations, talk radio, whatever, lean right. This is just kind of the ballfield that you play on and you can accept that and then go forward. I think by relating the experiences I've had in ways that you can build bipartisanship or work with the other side, I hope to be able to maybe inspire people to take that path.”
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