By David Harsanyi
Friday, July 21, 2016
Say what you will about Ted Cruz’s politics or
personality, but it takes a special kind of badassery to stand up at a
convention — in front of millions of viewers — and unfurl a comprehensive
attack on the party’s nominee. It’s also unprecedented. Last night, Cruz gave a
commanding and inclusive speech about conservative values. It was so good that
the crowd forgot to boo until he was more than halfway finished.
“Stand and speak and vote your conscience. Vote for
candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom.”
“Freedom matters, and I was part of something beautiful.”
All these words were broadsides against Donald Trump’s candidacy.
By the end, the crowd tried to drown him out with boos and pro-Trump chants.
Cruz’s wife had to be escorted out of the convention center because a mob of
Trump fans was threatening her. A man in a donor suite had to be restrained
when Cruz walked by. They don’t want something beautiful at the RNC, they want
something angry.
When Trump first ran for the presidency he claimed the
Republican Party was nothing but a bunch of spineless weasels who didn’t have
the mettle to fight. Trump then won the nomination and most of the Republican
establishment proved his contention true by backing a candidate whose worldview
directly conflicted with their own stated beliefs.
There were those, like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, who
reluctantly offered unconvincing endorsements to avert a civil war. Let’s just
say this is the sort of risk aversion that falls well within the normal
parameters of politically expedient behavior — the kind we all supposedly hate.
Then there were those who had no shame. Example: Then-candidate
Rick Perry once gave a speech entitled, “Defending conservatism against the
cancer of Trumpism.” Cancer. Now, if you want to read the text of his speech,
you won’t be able to find it on Perry’s website. It’s been removed. And the man
who once said Trumpism was “a toxic mix of demagoguery and mean-spiritedness
and nonsense that will lead the Republican Party to perdition if pursued,” was
soon angling for the veep spot and promised that he would help Trump in “a
myriad ways.”
Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal, Paul Ryan, and Scott Walker
were the people who would supposedly synthesize conservative ideals and then
offer a compelling, modern, principled, political case. All of them were at
various times harshly critical of Trump. All of them fell in line. Trump fans
are never going to warm to these “elitists,” no matter how helpful they are
this year. Now, after Cruz’s speech, all of them look weak.
Cruz, who we shouldn’t forget tried to be buddies with
Trump for most of last year, ended up in a different place. Now, I should note
that if someone smeared my wife and accused my father of being complicit in
murder of a president, I wouldn’t merely refuse to endorse that person, I would
have a new favorite enemy. I’m sensitive like that. So I can imagine Cruz’s speech
had something to do with this history. We’re human, after all.
It also says something about Trump’s judgment that he
invited a politician whom he’d cruelly attacked to speak at the convention — in
a prime time spot. “This man is a pathological liar,” Cruz spat out not that
long ago. “He doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies. He lies
practically every word that comes out of his mouth … The man is utterly amoral.
Morality does not exist for him.” Even if you believe that the Trump camp set
Cruz up to be booed (a story I’m highly skeptical about), he created a
needlessly divisive situation that could easily backfire.
It couldn’t have only been vengeance. Cruz hasn’t really
wavered on his political positions — like them or not. What shouldn’t be lost
in the kerfuffle is that the speech he gave was a well-delivered distillation
of conservative ideas that went well beyond the strikes on Trump. In contrast
to what’s been going on, it sounded inclusive.
Cruz also made a strong case for religious liberty — for
“Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Atheists” — and for federalism, mentioning a
pot legalization state like Colorado. All that talk about the Constitution
offended Trump’s fans because they know well the candidate has little, if any,
interest in preserving the document. The phrase “vote your conscience”
literally provoked boos from the GOP nominee’s fans.
The same day Cruz angered Trump supporters by not
honoring a silly, political pledge to endorse the GOP nominee, Trump was quoted
in a New York Times interview
praising another authoritarian and asserting that he would ignore international
treaties signed by the United States.
So while it takes guts to pull off what Cruz did, there
wasn’t much downside politically. It seems unlikely that a Trump victory would
mean an end of his Senate career. If 2016 ends up being a disaster for his
party — and, right now, it’s a good bet it will — Cruz will be the only major
Republican to emerge from the Trump fiasco with his principles largely intact.
Maybe, as his critics claim, he’s just laying the groundwork for 2020. Maybe it
will backfire. Maybe only someone as stubborn and egotistical as Cruz could do
it. So what?
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