Mark Sanford isn't afraid to criticize President Trump because 'truth matters'
Where once President Trump's unexpected political success seemed to blur partisan lines, since he took office, Congress and Americans more broadly have tended to re-embrace party allegiances rather than flouting them. One prominent exception is Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), featured Friday in a new profile from Politico.
Sanford first came to national attention in 2009, when he was governor of South Carolina. After disappearing for a week, he revealed an extramarital affair with an Argentine journalist, blowing up his marriage and — per common political wisdom — his political career. But eight years later, Sanford is in Congress, and that very history has given him a unique freedom to criticize a president with whom he shares a party but not a philosophy of governance:
The South Carolinian is known for his "professorial" commitment to his libertarian-leaning political ideals, principles that have him criticizing Trump for "fann[ing] the flames of intolerance" and demonstrating ignorance of the Constitution. Sanford rejects the expectation of intra-party deference to the president, and he recognizes the irony in his new role as champion of truth and transparency in politics. "I've got to be careful," he said to Politico, "because people who live in glass houses can't throw stones."
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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