I do not and cannot know exactly how and why Ted Cruz came to his decision to endorse Trump, what exactly went through his mind and was in his heart except for what he has said in his own words on the matter or whether or not he ever considered Hamlet’s monologue:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
I really wish that Ted Cruz would had stood his ground and continued to “take arms against a sea of troubles”. But then again, Cruz is not the Prince of Demark but a Senator from Texas. Perhaps he sees this as a way to “live and fight another day”.
At this point though I think Cruz’s endorsement of Trump only serves to alienate those who supported him on principle and that is not necessarily limited only to the #nevertrump’s although that would probably be the majority of them. And from what I can tell, for many of Trump’s ardent supporters, they are saying it is “too little too late”, and a “see we told you so” to the “#nevertrump” followed by a single finger salute to both Cruz and his supporters. (Way to get us #nevertrump or #maybetrumpbutwithreservations folks on board).
It seems to me, reading the Twitter, FB comments and comments on other sites such as TOS, that few if many Trump supporters are congratulating Cruz for “coming around” and large numbers of them still hate him with a passion and greet his endorsement as being self-serving and insincere and saying they will still actively work to primary him in 2018 or will support his Democratic opponent, whoever that is and without any seeming regard as to how liberal that person may be. I really think that if Elizabeth Warren moved to TX and ran against Cruz, that some if not many Trump supporters would vote for her just to give Cruz his due comeuppance. Welcome to the “new” GOP.
However, based on Cruz’s statement, it didn’t come off to me as a glowing or ringing endorsement of Trump, but rather a “here is a list of very important areas where I think Trump is better on than Clinton”. To quote him, “even though I have had areas of significant disagreement with our nominee, by any measure Hillary Clinton is wholly unacceptable” and “by any measure Hillary Clinton is wholly unacceptable.” I can’t disagree with him on that. Clinton is wholly unacceptable.
But I wish he would have also pointed out “those areas of significant disagreement” (he has with Trump) because I think they are important, just as important as the “six key policy differences (that) inform my decision”; the areas where Cruz finds Trump better than Clinton. IMO Cruz needs to do that; hold Trump’s feet to the fire not only on keeping the “promises” Trump has made on the six key policy difference(s) (between Trump and Clinton), but also on their areas of disagreement.
I live in Pennsylvania - a key battle ground state.
But in 1996 I lived in Maryland and the choice was between re-electing Clinton or voting for Bob Dole or for Ross Perot. Since Maryland was going to overwhelming go to Clinton, my choice and ultimately my protest vote was clear and as none of the above were acceptable choices to me, but since the vote in Maryland wasn’t going to be anywhere near close enough for me to think my vote would make any difference, I voted for the Libertarian candidate Harry Browne - Browne being perhaps the best, most constitutionally conservative candidate for POTUS that the Libertarians ever fielded. And FWIW despite my more “libertarian” leanings, I will not be voting for Gary Johnson.
I have a lot of friends and relatives who are very vocal on their support for Trump and am constantly bombarded on why Hillary Clinton would be a horrible POTUS, and on former point, I can’t disagree.
And no, it is not because of all her supposed “health issues”, some of which I think may be legitimate areas of concern but a lot of it I find crosses the line into wacky conspiracy theory territory, the ones that rely on photo shopped images and in many cases doctored YouTube videos and of arm chair “doctors”, but because of her and her husband’s corruption, her lies, but most of all on her policies, her far left politics. But then I also have many concerns about Trump’s policies and politics.
Just in the last two weeks for instance, Trump’s “child care” proposal likely formulated by his liberal daughter and then the comments he made about seemingly to advocate possibly federalizing policing policies – “Stop and Frisk”, either nationwide and then backtracking a day later to say just in Chicago, and that should give any constitutional conservative great pause and concern even if they were the only two areas of concern, and they are not.
From day to day, even from hour to hour, I keep questioning what I will do on November 8th. Rest assured that I will not under any circumstances vote for Hillary Clinton, but will I hold my nose and vote for Trump, vote for neither, vote for Castle or do a write in for SMOD or Cthulhu?
As of now I am still leaning toward voting for none of the above and just voting in November and in 2018 mid-terms for the down ticket candidates who I think are the most conservative and who I hope, no matter who is elected POTUS, will hold to the principles of a conservative, limited and constitutional government. Of course that assumes a Republican Congress has the testicles to do that and if past performance is indicative of future results we are probably screwed in either case.
I will not chastise those who say they will vote for Trump because the alternative is unthinkable.
I will not chastise those who can’t vote for Trump because they don’t believe he is a conservative and fear he won’t keep his promises and would as POTUS shift left-center (or worse).
I will not even chastise those who truly believe that Trump will act as a conservative will be a good if not great POTUS. And I hope with all sincerity that they are correct.
I do however reserve the right to call out and will continue to call out Trump and his supporters where I see them being wrong and would hope that Cruz will do the same, if not before November 8th because his main concern right now is keeping Hillary out of the White House, then immediately after, assuming Trump wins.
Would Hillary Clinton be terrible POTUS? Yes. Do I agree with Cruz that on the six key issues (Supreme Court nominees, Obamacare, energy policies, immigration amnesty via EO’s, national security, especially where it comes to Islamic terrorism, and Internet freedom), that what Trump has said he would do as POTUS “trumps” what Clinton says she would do as POTUS? Yes. But that also assumes Trump will keep his word and not shift, moderate, re-think, etc. those positions, not shift back to being a liberal to moderately liberal Democrat once in office. And I want to believe. I really do.
Would Hillary as POTUS be the “End of America”? She certainly would likely continue the path and the damage that Obama has done policy wise and with EO’s and SCOTUS appointments and could likely do even more damage. Would we survive? I would hope so.
And I only say that because I am old enough to have lived through, remember the last term of Johnson, the 2nd term of Nixon and of Watergate when I recall people saying that no Republican would ever be elected to national office again, Jimmy Carter's disastrous four years in office and Bill Clinton’s two terms, and now the two terms of Obama.
With respect to Bill Clinton, I very much recall people, some conservatives saying at the time that if he was elected in 1992 that all sorts of horrible things including that all guns would be confiscated and conservatives and Christians would be put into internment camps and the same in 1996 and at the end of his term when I was told by some that Clinton would declare martial law to keep GWB out of the White House. None of those things came to pass and we did as I would note, survive.
I also recall in 1976 when Carter ran that many people including my lifelong Republican parents, leaning toward Carter because of raging inflation and joblessness, and that his populist message of lower taxes on the middle class, bringing back jobs in part by ending “unfair trade” practices, ending “crony capitalism” and his “outsider” image along with their disgust over Watergate and with what at the time I recall my father calling - the “Country Club Republicans” – those who are now called RINOS or “cucks”. And we all know how the four years of the Carter administration turned out. But we survived and elected Reagan twice, with the 1980 election being the first election in which I was eligible to vote.
My problem with Trump is not only are many of his positions both in the past and now, are not truly conservative, but that he can’t make rational or more importantly any consistent arguments in support of any of his positions. I’m not talking about the written policies on his website or when he’s reading on script and off a teleprompter, but the unscripted Trump. The word salad Trump. The Twitter Trump. The petulant and thin skinned Trump who instead of calling people names and Tweeting about Mark Cuban and Gennifer Flowers should be preparing for the debate.
Let me just say that in a time of crisis, I don’t want a POTUS who’s first instinct is to lash out on Twitter, who's foreign policy is self admittedly formed by watching the Sunday morning talk shows, who thinks he’s smarter than all the military and intelligence folks about anything and everything including on ISIS, who admires Putin and even had good things to say about the Glorious Leader of North Korea, who Twitters insults and posts innuendos about Morning Joe and Mika when he should be hitting Clinton on policy matters, who thinks the National Enquirer is a reputable newspaper and through his BFF David Pecker, runs stories that attack his opponents with innuendos and lies, and who evidently reads People and from it cuts out pictures of his ex-wife while eating Taco Bowls to prove he’s down with the Hispanics….
My more “bigly” problem is that it seems many of his supporters don’t seem to care. They don’t seem to care if Trump is not a conservative and acts out like a petulant spoiled 10-year-old whose parents are not parental enough nor willing to take his cell phone away and shut down his Twitter account because he should be studying and doing his homework instead of Tweeting out insults.
But as I’ve been told by some Trump supporters lately, “what has “conservatism” ever done for us?” and what we need is someone who will rule under a “new” party, an “America First” or a “nationalist” party. I’ve told by more than one Freeper and have also seen it posted elsewhere, that America is in dire need of “our Pinochet” and that Pinochet like leader is Trump. Or that Trump’s children should be next in line to succeed him – 4-8 years of Trump followed by 4-8 years of Don Jr, followed by 4-8 years of Ivanka…and so on and no – sadly, many of them were not joking. There is a level of Trump worship among some including some of the disturbing pro-Trump images including portraying him as Jesus that makes the Obama, the mmm…mmm…mmm Obama worship pale in comparison.
OK. Perhaps that POV does not represent the vast majority of Trump’s supporters but I do think I and others are rightly concerned over the rise of the very vocal and seemingly growing and influential faction of the far “Alt-Right” and #nationalists who do think that way, and worse.
I am concerned over people close to and influencing Trump like Bannon and Stone. And people can tell me all day long what a hoot and what a great asset Milo Yiannopoulos is to his “Daddy”. While Milo has shown a bright and harsh light on the PC and SJW’s and deservedly so, one would be very much mistaken to think that he is by any means a “conservative” or fail to note his well-documented hatred for what he calls “the religious right”. Or that the Pepe the frog memes are completely harmless – some are, but too many like to portray Pepe in Nazi uniforms putting the “cucks” into gas chambers or as Pinochet throwing people out of helicopters for me to pass if off as harmless.
There is a deeply disturbing underbelly to the far Alt-Right that not only does Trump not rebuke (heck Trump’s camp and Priebus can’t even decide from one day to the next whether David Duke needs to be rebuked or by how much) but that Trump seems to embrace them (i.e. he and more recently Donald Jr. re-tweeting from the Twitter posts from the accounts of openly neo-Nazi/white supremacists). Once I could write off as a rookie mistake but more than once? More than twice? More than three times?...
Do I think that Trump is truly a Nazi or a Fascist, a Hitler or Mussolini in waiting or for that matter a hardcore leftist or a secret Marxist? No. I do not. But I believe Trump is an opportunist. What concerns me is that IMO Trump has very few core principles at all and that his pathological narcissism (and to some extent I will grant you that nearly all politicians are somewhat narcissistic) along with his desire to be loved and admired; this IMO leads him to making poor alliances and poor choices and influences his opinions, hence his tendencies to change like the weather.
For example, I give you his pandering to the Bernie supporters - Trump even Tweeted about that today saying "Many on the team and staff of Bernie Sanders have been treated badly by the Hillary Clinton campaign - and they like Trump on trade, a lot!” Reagan got cross over support from many disaffected “blue dog” and “blue collar” democrats but not because Reagan abandoned his core conservative principles or that he tailored his message to pander to disaffected liberals. Reagan did not go to them; they came over to him and to his conservative message.
Then we have Reince Priebus recently saying that anyone who did not support Trump would be “punished” and barred from running for office as a GOP candidate ever again. Note that nothing Priebus said had anything to do with any said candidates’ past record, of them being consistently conservative or whether they supported the GOP platform or not; it comes down to “Join The Trump Train or Else!” Perhaps that was in part what drove Cruz to endorsing Trump, hoping that the GOP will help him in his Senate re-election bid and a POTUS run in 2020, but that would be sad and disappointing if true. I somehow doubt that Cruz will get much support from the Trump GOP ™ even with his late endorsement. If that was his reasoning for endorsing Trump, he made a very bad choice.
So these reasons, not to mention others, is why I am concerned about Trump being elected. Hillary would be bad for the country but I don’t think she would destroy the conservative opposition whereas Trump and his movement may, even if unintentionally.
Without a doubt electing Hillary would be very bad for the country. But electing Trump and giving the far Alt-Right “nationalists” and the “what has conservativism and what have conservative values ever really done for us”, the “we need to destroy the GOP in order to save the GOP” or even the “conservatism needs to be re-branded and or re-thought”, greater influence, could and would be IMO very bad for the cause of constitutional conservatism and would further hasten the destruction of the GOP. And with its destruction, of any hopes of it being the last refuge, any major voice and a party platform of supporting the cause of constitutional conservatism. With Trump and all too many of his supporters. I see over and over the chant of “Constitutional Conservatism is dead. Long live whatever fills the vacuum”.
True constitutional conservatives will be left on the outside looking in and will have to either coalesce, perhaps with the support of the more conservative and not completely bat quango Libertarians (and yes there are some) and of the Constitution Party and the constitutional independents, to form a new party, otherwise they will be relegated to the dust bin of history. But I doubt that any 3rd party will gain much ground because both the Dems and Reps along with the MSM have too much to gain and nothing to lose from keeping a conservative 3rd party down.
I envision soon a far Leftist Democratic Party and a far Right Republican Party. But when standing in a circle, if one party keeps walking to the left and the other party keeps walking to the right, eventually they will meet – at a point of agreement, a distinction without much of any difference and unfortunately that’s where I see things going. At the end of the day individual freedom loses and big government wins.
And to some extent Trump was correct saying that that the system is rigged. But now that the GOP has given over to Trumpism that system is now rigged completely for him and he has no right to complain at least on that account. Trump has not yet won the election but he has won the GOP. Who are the losers?
So here I sit here in Pennsylvania, a battle ground state, and on a very nice rather cool early autumn afternoon, watching the Ravens game on TV. It is getting closer but November still seems a long way off. I know of where I’m leaning at the moment but I have not made my final decision yet and may not until I get into the voting booth where I will take a deep breath and meditate for guidance.
Next weekend I plan to go to the National Apple Harvest Festival (
http://www.appleharvest.com/) with my niece and my nephew, their spouses and my many great nieces – all 6 of them (7 if the eldest collage age one goes and 8 kids altogether if my great nephew is not working that day). I plan to enjoy the day and eat some pumpkin funnel cake and other great foods, buy some roasted nuts and homemade fudge, some apple butter and perhaps a bag of apples, see the exhibits, listen to the music and just enjoy a nice fall day and a hopefully politics free day with those I love.
I guess no matter who I end up voting for or not voting for and who wins this year’s election, I will (hopefully) live to fight the good fight another day and hope that Cruz does the same.
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprise of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action. -- Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia! -- Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.
