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Why I Am Not a Cruzite
Ted Cruz’s electrifying performance at the 2016 Republican National Convention will be long remembered, and deservedly so. At a critical moment, when the party of Lincoln had uncomfortably but nonetheless thoroughly embraced a lifelong Democrat/reality star/violence-abettor – and when few leading Republicans had demonstrated the courage to oppose him — Cruz did. Politicians live for the adulation of crowds and it’s bracing, even thrilling, to see one stand up straight when suffering its jeers. Cruz was particularly effective because he dropped the southern preacher style he affected during the primaries and spoke plainly.
And yet, and yet. One can never quite get over the sense with Cruz that everything is calculated. He took a risk, yes, but there is high potential gain for him in being perceived, whatever happens in November, as the voice of pure Republican conservatism. Cruz was a pillar of strength last night, God bless him. But let’s not forget that John Kasich has not bowed to the orange god either, nor has Mitt Romney, or Ben Sasse, or many others.
There is so much to admire about Cruz – and I don’t doubt that if his plan had worked and he’d been elected, he would have made a good president – but he also must bear some measure of responsibility for what has happened to the Republican Party, and thus, to the country. Together with talk radio and Fox News celebrities, Cruz wove the tale of Republican Party betrayal that so alienated and embittered Republican voters against his own party. From the moment he arrived in Washington, Cruz lacerated Republicans as part of the “Washington cartel.” His specialty was the attention grabbing gesture like the filibuster against Obamacare. It had no chance of success, but positioned Ted Cruz very well with the “base.”
Cruz was crucial in portraying the Republican leadership, which, while not perfect, had certainly held the line against Obama, as corrupt and complicit in everything Obama had done. In June, 2015, for example, he mocked: “Why is it that Republican leadership always cuts deals with Democrats and with Washington and throws overboard the conservatives that, come October and November in an election year, they are desperately asking them to turn out and elect them to power?”
When he won Iowa, he proclaimed it a “victory for every American who has watched in dismay as career politicians in both parties refused to listen and too often fail to keep their commitments to the people.”
And as Trump rose in the polls and became a dire threat to nearly everything conservatives claim to cherish, Cruz adjusted his positions (endorsing deportation of illegal immigrants and their American citizen children, for example, and opposing TPP) and kept praising the New York fraudster. Should Trump apologize for what he said about Mexican immigrants being rapists? Cruz: “I think he’s terrific. I think he’s brash. I think he speaks the truth.” Trump’s critics were “silly” and “politically correct.” Cruz applauded Trump for “taking on the Washington cartel.” As late as December, 2015, after the attack on the handicapped reporter, and after Trump’s references to Megyn Kelly’s menstrual cycle, and after Trump called on a crowd to “rough up” a protester, Cruz called him “terrific.”
Clearly the senator was gambling that the reality star would implode and Cruz would be waiting to net Trump’s fans. That’s a motive, but not an excuse. By praising him so often and so unequivocally, didn’t Cruz help to detoxify Trump? Cruz is a decent and honorable person, but he abetted Trump’s indecency until Trump’s muzzle swung in his direction. And by sowing so much unfair suspicion about the Republican Party, didn’t Cruz help create the “burn it down” mood of 2016, which, in the end, devoured Cruz’s own hopes, along with so much else?
Politicians position, and hedge, and dodge. Understood. But when that positioning comes in the form of undermining a key institution, i.e. the Republican Party, it’s playing with fire. Institutions take decades or generations to build. The Republican Party, for all its faults, was the only vehicle for conservative ideas in our society. Ted Cruz, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity and the rest picked an ironic time to undermine it, since the Party has never been more thoroughly conservative (at least as reflected in elected officials) as it was in 2016.
Now, with a Trumpified Republican Party, conservatives are homeless and arguably crippled. If Trump wins, the transmogrification of the Republican Party will be total and “conservatives” will become Trumpites. If he loses (which is much more likely), the stain of Trumpism may keep Republicans from the White House for another generation. Either way, conservatism is the loser.
Published in General
Mona, please step back and take a look at the world around you. What makes you think conservatism, in the form practiced over the past 40-50 years, has anything approaching a future? Between Scalia’s death, Trump’s ascendance, and Cruz consumed by the fire he started, these are…rather shaky times for that old time conservative religion.
And I haven’t even gotten to what’s about to happen to Fox News once Ailes receives his parachute in the next couple of weeks. Then again, at least Sean Hannity is headed toward his media oblivion being a team player all the way.
The majority of Republicans in almost every primary voted for someone other than Trump. We’re only here because of split opposition and ghastly arithmetic, not because the voters disprove with Cruz or what he’s been saying all these years. The other candidates can rightly look at themselves to take part of the blame, for not bowing out when there was still time, but not for sounding the call to make big changes.
I’m sorry, but my admiration of Ted Cruz ended with his speech.
Sure, Cruz didn’t have to endorse Trump, and no one expected him to. However, I expected Cruz to support the one—and only one—alternative to Hillary Clinton. I’m an ultra-right-wing, Christian, gun-totin’, pick-em-up truck driving conservative. I also have a bachelor’s in physics, a master’s in nuclear engineering, and I am currently working on getting a $2.3 billion nuclear waste processing plant up and running. I am not a Neanderthal. I was an officer (a lieutenant, the Weapons Officer on a fast attack submarine) in the nuclear navy. I was the fifth most senior officer on my boat at the tender age of 28 when I left the service.
I disagree with your last assertion. Conservatism will not be set back if Trump is the winner, but it will die if Hillary Clinton becomes President.
I had started writing a post entitled “Calculating Cruz.” This speech was disgraceful. Inducing crying over a slain police officer (on an issue that doesn’t really distinguish him from Trump) only to deliver a juke of a punchline in aid of his calculated, self-interested ambition.
I’m not going to knock Cruz especially hard for being calculating – I wish he had stood straight backed against Trump from day one, but I vastly prefer his trajectory of non-condemnation to pillar of strength against Trump to the trajectories of so many in the GOP, who started out opposing Trump but then dropped their principles and slunk onto the bandwagon.
I also think you overstate Cruz’ sins. Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham are quislings who have done more to get Hillary elected than any of the NeverTrumpers they hate, but Ted Cruz never spoke in favor of truly trashing the GOP – so far as I ever heard it, his message seemed to always center around stopping Obama. He had tactical disagreements, and fiery ones, with his colleagues, and I think that his incivility in those was sometimes worthy of condemnation, but I will not lay the rise of Trump at his feet.
Sometimes I think that if Cruz didn’t seem like such a slimy politician, he wouldn’t get so much more flak than the many less-transparently-slimy politicians who are his colleagues.
Below is my generic “Cruz” comment, only slightly modified from the way it appeared on another thread, in order to apply it more specifically to this one.
I shall be experimenting, over the next few days, with the utility of this all-purpose comment, to see how far I can make it go.
I might also add into my boilerplate, at some point, acknowledgment of the usual grudging admission, which often accompanies these sorts of comments, that Cruz was right, and that he said what needed to be said, better than anyone else could possibly have said it.
Very often, too, there’s the bit about, “I agree with everything he says, but he’s just too creepy for me to vote for.” Note to self: Must work that in somehow.
We need to dispense with this myth once and for all. Every non-Trump voter voted for someone other than the person that won the nomination. That’s true of any aggregate vote. If you want to crunch the numbers, look at the guy I voted for – Ted Cruz. The majority of voters in most states voted for someone other than Ted. The same goes for all 17 original candidates. Trump got the most overall votes, and he won.
The bottom line? Trump won fair and square, just like McCain and Romney in the previous two primaries. I’m going to back Trump 110%, because the alternative is to terrible to contemplate . . .
Anyone here ever think of the myriad ways in which Trump could act to avoid these kinds of results? Something is missing with him and it makes him dangerous in a role like POTUS, although not strictly in the ideological way of Clinton. I see within the support group for Trump something much like what has afflicted the current administrations Justice Department, so our country may be in for some really rough days either way.
@stad
That argument isn’t saying that Trump cheated somehow, it’s saying that he is not representative of a majority of the party’s preferences. When it’s brought up it’s not to say that his victory was illegitimate, but to point out that he never swept the whole party. 60% or so of the party was quibbling over vanilla versus french vanilla, whereas 40% of the party was all in for orange sherbet.
Mona perfectly encapsulates my feelings about Cruz and yet I’m still a huge fan of his and the country would be better if he was our President.
If Hillary wins, the newly Liberal Supreme Court will make sure Conservatism is dead for a very long time. The Republican party and Conservatives will be nothing more than an academic think tank that cannot win any political victories because the Supreme Court (and lower Courts) will crush efforts to uphold the Constitution or implement Conservative policies. Think about how many laws passed by Republicans have been struck down by the Courts in the last decade. Liberals have figured out they don’t need Congress any more. The DOJ has admitted that Hillary is above the law. The only chance to stop this from happening is a Trump/Pence victory.
Cruz is putting himself ahead of his country. As a former Cruz fan, I am disappointed in his selfishness. If he could not forgive the personal insults, he should have declined the invitation to speak. Conservatives who hate Trump would be much better off holding their noses during a Trump presidency than watching Hillary decimate everything they hold dear for a very long time. The Republican party can survive Trump, but it cannot survive Hillary. I have read many of the explanations from the Never Trump crowd on Ricochet, but none of them convince me that losing to Hillary is somehow better. Cruz should have made that clear in his speech.
I prefer the term “Cruzer.”
For the record, I was a “Walker.”
“…-er.”
“Walker-er.”
I agree with much of your analysis, but Occam’s Razor suggests a more charitable explanation for Cruz’s choice: he had none. Who will vote for a Commander In Chief who won’t even stand up for his family or his personal honor?
Given no choice, he did the minimal. Aristotle might say, “Prudence.”
I thought a core conservative belief was: no utopianism. We always have to choose the least bad. Is Hilary the least bad for the country, you think?
I never said Trump cheated. I’m just saying that the logic used to say that most people preferred someone other than Trump is false. I agree with (and like) your observation about the 60%-40%, but the “orange sherbert” (assuming that’s Trump) won because the majority (diluted by the other 16) did win.
My assertion was based on the fact that the basis of the argument (most people didn’t vote for X) doesn’t work unless there are only two choices. When there are multiple choices, the basis falls apart. Heck, I saw a poll with results that showed that of the Trump and Cruz supporters, the other candiadate was their second choice.
I’ll posit the only way to know all the thinking behind voting is for voters to rank their choices . . .
Good point. Hasn’t there been criticism of the other candidates for eating the insults and saying nothing?
Not how it works. Something is either a majority or not. 40% < 50.001%.
The argument still holds up because in some respects there were two choices: Trump the unconventional or 16 other flavors of conventional.
I think he did. He spoke to freedom, the Constitution, and voting one’s conscience. Any thinking conservative can figure out where their vote should go. Others will vote from a different motivation.
Yes, Cruz is calculating. So is Trump; he knew what Cruz was going to say and let him say it.
Yes, there is bad blood between Cruz and Trump. First the Cruz superPAC slimed Melania Trump; Trump himself went after Cruz’ wife and father.
But Cruz is also mean spirited and thin skinned. Sometimes that gets loose. Here’s a key bit of analysis from Sundance at Conservative Treehouse:
Mona,
One more shot at Cruz. Guess you could just not resist.
But he’s helping Hillary right? Any criticism of Trump is tantamount to a vote for Hillary!
That means you cannot admire ANYONE who does not see Trump as least bad and not Hilary? Long ago, before the primaries were well underway both John Yoo and Richard Epstein suggested they would vote Hilary over Trump for the good of the Republic. Why would you cease to admire these men (assuming you admired them before) for coming to a different verdict on a very hard question. (NATO mater to you at all?)
Anyway, consider that Cruz might HATE Trump in a way you and I never could. In that case, he acted rather prudently, no? He refrained from staying away from the Party (as Hewlitt Packard, Apple, and others have done in a way to suggest there is a problem with Republicans) and instead came to endorse core Republican principles. But when it came to his sacred honor…he refused to declare amnesty or run from the issue but also remained mute without asking anyone to follow his lead.
I say, you can admire him again.
It might help Clinton, as I acknowledged on my post on the subject.
Given that you have criticized me as a Hillary supporter for my #NeverTrump stance can I expect an apology or just a double standard?
By the way, isn’t accusing a politician of being calculating, like accusing an accountant of being good with numbers?
Pointing out that hurting Trump helps Hillary is an observation, not a judgement. You are the one making it into a judgement. I have stated over and over, I don’t care how you vote. What you hear when I say an truth you do not like is not judgement on my part.
It is not just this subject, but other subjects where you have refused to assume I am making good faith arguments, and decided to attack me. Even when I clarify, you continue with the attacks.
I am, as of this point, done repeating answers. If the fact that if you hurt Trump’s chances, you end up helping Clinton bothers you so much, I suggest you engage in self-reflection instead of being angry at me. Anger is always a secondary emotion. It is a response to being hurt, anxious, threatened or the like. Perhaps you need to figure out which emotion is leading to your anger, ans ask yourself why you are giving me so much power to make you so angry.
Here’s my analysis (which I posted about a couple of hours ago on another OP).
Ted Cruz “Marco-Rubio-ed” himself last night. He chose to position himself captaining a ship on what he hopes or truly sees as the running current of politics, with his eye squarely fixed not on the present course but on a horizon years away.
But like Rubio all he got for his efforts and all he will continue to receive for them are questions about his fidelity to the issue most important to the conservative voting base. For Rubio that was immigration; for Cruz the crucial issue he misjudged is conservative desire to win the White House in 2016 and stop the triumph of progressivism.
Cruz took his eye off the prize last night, preferring to set himself up to run in 2020, no matter who wins this November. In a very real way he confirmed the stereotype about him – that he is shifty and out for himself. That’s never good.
I predict that over the next 3 years whether Trump wins or not Cruz won’t be able to speak to conservative audiences or be interviewed by conservative commentators without having to answer questions about his failure to endorse Trump. That decision, like Rubio’s decision to join the Gang of Eight, will be an albatross around the neck of his political career. Eventually it will drag him down and drown him in the shifting tides of political history.
If Marco’s video stated the same thing, Mona would be gushing. If Ben Sasse would have come to the convention instead of watching Nebraska dumpster fires – it would have been Lincoln-like!
We’re a minority within a minority party. We need every member we can get and I’d prefer not to be part of the same party with her (and probably visa versa).
How Ted Cruz maneuvered with Trump and 16 other candidates for 8 months gave us Trump. Not what the GOP leadership has done for the past 4, 6, 8, 12 years.
@wicon Forgive me but I don’t understand what you’re getting at. You start off sounding like you think Charen is unfair to Cruz when she would have praised the same thing done by Rubio, as though you are defending Cruz, but then you end by blaming his maneuvering for Trump. I am confused. I definitely agree with you that those opposed to Trump ought not to look a gift horse in the mouth when it comes to allies.
Cruz didn’t make the Republicans look bad. The Republicans made the Republicans look bad. Cruz merely helped sharpen the focus between the game they talked and the game they played. That made him a lot of enemies.