Cruz Explains Why He Refuses to Endorse Trump
What does it all mean?
Wednesday night, Sen. Ted Cruz was booed off the Republican National Convention stage when attending delegates realized the good Senator had zero plans to endorse Donald Trump. Instead, he encouraged people to, “vote their conscience.”
There’s a lot to unpack here: RNC reaction, Trump reaction, Cruz’s reasons, and does any of this really matter?
We’ll start with…
Cruz Explains Why He Won’t Endorse Trump
At a breakfast with the Texas delegation Thursday morning, Senator Cruz was peppered with questions from angry delegates demanding to know why Cruz chose not to endorse Trump
Full remarks are here, but we’ll explore two of the most important points Cruz made.
First, why he didn’t fall in line with an endorsement, despite party politics.
Cruz was asked why, when he had the opportunity to unite the party, he chose not to.
“I have to confess, what you said would be easy to do. How many people here are frustrated with politicians who just say anything? There are a lot of options that I could’ve taken that politically, would’ve been a heckuva lot easier.
There’s option number one which a whole bunch of people took, which is turn tale and run and don’t come to the convention. There are a bunch of people who did that. I ain’t one of them.
There’s another option. Let me tell you the politically easy option is to stand up and pledge your allegiance to whoever the party nominee might be no matter what. If you’re an elected official, that’s the right political outcome. Let me tell you something sir, I’m not going to lie to you. Whether you want me to or not, I’m not going to lie to you and what I said last night is what I believe. So, yes.”
The delegate continued and clarified that he meant to question Cruz’s lack of support for the party, not Donald Trump.
“So your point was support the party — the Republican Party — and I will…”
“The party has spoken!” interrupted the delegate.
“Sir, I’m happy to answer questions but I’m not going to engage in a screaming match. I actually believe in treating people with civility and respect. When it comes to supporting the party, number one, the four years I’ve been in office, there are a lot of elected officials in this room, across the party, and across the country, that I’ve traveled the country, I’ve travelled the state of Texas campaigning for, raising money for, fighting to help elect Republicans. But let me be very clear, this isn’t a a social club.”
Secondly, Cruz adamantly defended his right to withdraw support from individuals who personally attack his family.
A delegate pointed out that Cruz signed a pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee. She wanted to know why anyone should trust him after he reneged on that pledge. “I supported you and I expected you to keep your word,” she said.
“Thank you for speaking and speaking from your heart. I will tell you that when I stood on that debate stage and they asked every candidate there, if you don’t win, will you support the nominee, I raised my hand and I raised my hand enthusiastically with full intention of doing exactly that. And I’ll tell you the day that pledge was abrogated.
The day that was abrogated was the day this became personal, and as I said at the time, and I’m not going to get into criticizing or attacking Donald Trump, but I’ll just give you this response: I am not in the habit of of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father. And that pledge was not a blanket commitment that if you go and slander and attack Heidi, that I’m gonna nonetheless come like a servile puppy dog and say, thank you very much for maligning my wife and maligning my father.”
Cruz then directed his comments to a gentleman in the back making “crying signs”.
“I will note sir, you might have a similar view if someone were attacking your wife, in fact I hope you would.”
“This is politics, you gotta get over it!” said Mr. Crying Signs.
“No, this is not politics. I will tell the truth. I will not malign, I will not insult, I will not attack, I will tell the truth. This is not a game. It is not politics. Right and wrong matters. We have not abandoned who we are in this country. No sir, I do not believe that is correct.”
Where I come from, trash talk someone’s wife and you’ll be served a knuckle sandwich. Guarantee my husband wouldn’t tolerate any such guff. But I digress.
If we must tit for tat on the pledge, Trump was the first to rescind his unconditional support of the eventual nominee. “I’ll see who it is,” Trump told Anderson Cooper after signing the pledge. “I could see [Ted Cruz] was having a hard time with a very simple question. I don’t want him to be tormented. I want him to be comfortable. I don’t need his support. I don’t want his support.”
Trump/RNC Reaction:
This one is a bit tricky because it’s all over the place.
The Donald’s response:
Wow, Ted Cruz got booed off the stage, didn’t honor the pledge! I saw his speech two hours early but let him speak anyway. No big deal!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 21, 2016
Cruz’s remarks were approved by the RNC before he gave them. He changed nothing in the delivery of his speech. No endorsement was included in his pre-prepared remarks and everyone knew that. There are also reports that two days prior to his convention speech, Cruz discussed the matter with Trump directly. So any shock in the aftermath by the aforementioned parties was or is political theatre at its finest.
Meanwhile:
Two sources tell me Trump team actively whipped the “boos” at the end of Cruz speech
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) July 21, 2016
It’s worth asking why Trump’s campaign would choose to stir up a negative response rather than let the speech go on uncontested.
WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN?!?!
Popular reaction is completely divided. To one camp, Cruz is a selfishly motivated traitor who blew any chance of party unity from now until forever. To the other, hope is renewed because Cruz stood for principle over party.
Interestingly, many who champion Trump do so because they see in him a departure from the status quo, the old guard, and The Establishment™ way of doing things…yet those same supporters are incensed Cruz didn’t follow suit.
More importantly, Cruz’s reluctance to go with the flow is not at all uncharacteristic. It’s his claim to fame. For better or worse, he’s always planted himself where he sees fit and is unmoved by criticism, backlash, and in this case, thunderous boos. Were his non-endorsement actions calculated? You bet. Virtuous though he may be (or self-promoting, depending on how you view the man), he’s a politician and is certainly no dummy. Will his actions help or hurt him? Is Cruz a hero or a villain in this story? In this political climate, hell if I know.
What Cruz did accomplish — he highlighted the very real striation dividing right-leaning voters; those compelled to support Trump in order to beat Hillary, and those distraught between the choices available (hence the appeal to conscience). Much of the convention (thus far) has glossed over the undercurrent of tumult in the hopes that unilateral hatred of “Crooked Hillary” will be enough of a band aid to get Trump across the November finish line. If the delegate reaction to Cruz’s speech is an indicator, it’s not going to be that simple.
I leave you with a question I posed last night, one that Cruz also asked during the the Texas delegation breakfast this morning:
What does it say about the current state of political discourse when “vote your conscience” is provocatively controversial? #RNCinCLE
— Kemberlee Kaye (@KemberleeKaye) July 21, 2016
Follow Kemberlee on Twitter @kemberleekaye
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Comments
“Where I come from, trash talking someone’s wife and you’ll be served a knuckle sandwich.”
Amen Sister.
Great post KK!
Thank you!
I’ll second that!
I was hoping it was because Trump was too far to the left, but good on Cruz for not giving him a pass.
If Trump says its bare knuckles street fighting, I’m ok with that too (from him) as I don’t expect the Clinton’s, Putin or ISIS to play nice. So long as when he’s in office, he doesn’t treat the position like a rental car in Tijuana.
Sad times indeed when voting your conscience is controversial. Also, if someone attacked your wife and throws tabloid junk at your father and you still kissed the ring, I would question your character and conscience. And nobody better be using that “unite the party” crap. Donald certainly wasn’t going to do it and even said he wouldn’t. The words within Cruz’s speech are exactly what the Republican Party should stand for. A bloviating bombast who thinks he will single-handedly make America greater than it ever has been before should not be a plank in any party’s platform.
I hadn’t watched any of his speeches.
I had no idea he was such a poor polemicist. I knew he was bad at it, but not that bad. He sounds like he learned everything he knows about public speaking from a summer job selling used cars. Or maybe those afternoon TV infomercials about vacuum cleaners.
thank you very much for maligning my wife and maligning my father.
That’s a guy who has nothing of national import to say and is looking for a smokescreen. Sure, he’s peeved. So what? There’s work to be done, and grousing about a personal tiff isn’t doing it.
I’m afraid anyone who sees this pettifoggery as “principle” or “conscience” is setting his personal bar awfully low.
“There’s work to be done.”
Yes there is, a lot of it. Regardless of who wins this election, the Senate has it’s work cut out for it protecting the Constitution from further power grabs. Assuming the individual Senators want to do their jobs. Cruz has shown that he does.
The issue is that so very few, from either party, want do defend the Constitution.
You are correct. They’re more interested in gorging at the federal trough.
I’d love to see the 17th Amendment repealed. I believe it would go a long way towards restoring the proper balance of power between the states and the federal government.
Paul, I would like to see most of the Terrible Teens at least reconsidered. The 16th and 17th stand out a lot, and in my unlawyerly opinion, the 14th needs better wording.
Trump attacked his wife and accused his father of being involved in the JFK assassination and Cruz is supposed to stand up and support him? That might be business as usual among your friends and family members but for the rest of us, it was a clear sign of an immature bully lashing out at his opposition.
How low is your bar set that you find that type of behavior acceptable?
What I find amusing is how he keeps on justifying his actions because Trump was mean to his wife… when it was the Cruz supporters in Utah who started that little fracas with their blatant attacks on Melania.
Guess the Cruz-bots can dish it out, but can’t take it.
Let’s review, stupid…
T-rump–
1. attacked Cruz’s citizenship…after declaring it a non-issue
2. called Cruz “Lyin’ Ted” over matters he himself was lying about
3. viciously attacked Mrs. Cruz over her looks, employment, and past depression
4. had his surrogates float bullshit lies about Cruz affairs
5. had the same surrogates float bullshit lies about Cruz’s dad
6. had OTHER surrogates flog religiously bigoted bullshit lies about various crap respecting Cruz’s religion (Southern Bapist, BTW).
T-rump is a stinking, lying, pathological Collectivist thug.
Learn it. Live it. Love it.
Rags and LI, I love how you can’t let Cruz go. It is over. The fact that Cruz can’t get over it means he can’t be effective at a conservative leader. Yea, it is personal and he has a right to be mad. It is poor judgement to bring us all into it.
It is really not about Trump, it is about advancing the conservative philosophies. He could have been the adult but his comments here shows that he is not above that; letting the personal attacks get in the way of doing what really needs to be done. Cruz is a disappointment to me, I had high hopes for him when I read about him in the Wall Street Journal many years ago.
It interesting, talk about personal attacks. Sarah Palin has endured 100 times more than Cruz and from a character prospective, she seems to be true to her values. Not as smart as Cruz, but think about how she has handled it. Has she lost her base? Cruz lacks that common sense that is needed to get things done as President my “not making it personal”
You keep pointing out how bully Trump has been mean to Cruz. So what! It is politics and Cruz needs to cut the victim crap if he wants my support.
No matter how much I dislike Trump he does two things for me; keeping Hilary out of office and breaking the RNC from the lousy weak candidates that they keep giving us. Cruz could have been a part of making the RNC better, but instead he is just a sore loser “victim” which this threat proves.
Trump has a long way to go to earn my respect, but Cruz has lost my respect over the last 6 months. Trump dirty tricks are blatant but Cruz’s dirty tricks are poorly executed behind the scene and weak.
I am voting for Sessions and Newt this time, not Trump. My guess is you do not like either one of those guys too. Maybe you part of the establishment and Cruz is your way of keep status quo.
The Cruz supporters/PAC who started that Melania thing weren’t in any way affiliated with Cruz or with his campaign. Trump, himself–not a supporter, not even a surrogate–Trump personally insulted Heidi. BIG difference.
That some who support/ed Cruz didn’t want a First Lady who speaks in broken English is unfortunate, but it had nothing to do with Cruz . . . until Trump made it so by attacking Heidi directly.
No one is asking you to support Cruz; he’s not running for office this year. But it would be nice if you at least managed to get and keep your facts straight.
So in other words, Trump is more honest than Lyin’ Ted, thanks for proving it!
And Rags, can you spell sore loser? I know you can *pat pat pat*
T-rump is a stinking, lying, pathological Collectivist thug.
Learn it. Live it. Love it.
I first made that observation WELL over a year ago.
Can you spell “lying asshole”? I knew you could. Pat, pat, pat.
Rags, if nothing else, Trump is a Democrat running under the GOP as a “flag of convenience”, just like Bloomberg did for Mayor of New York, We all see how that turned out.
Sunhawk, this is the most bizarre comment I’ve read in quite some time (and that’s saying something given the proliferation of Alex Jones-type fringe cultists who’ve gravitated for some reason to LI).
Nothing at all in my comment suggests that “Trump is more honest than Cruz.” What are you talking about? Do you mean that at least Trump, himself, attacked Cruz’s wife? That’s somehow “more honest”? If so, that would suggest that you believe Cruz was somehow “in on” the PAC attack on Melania. That’s been disproved several times over.
Further, you will find that Cruz never attacked Melania, even after Trump acted like an insecure teenager insisting “my wife’s hotter than your wife.” Cruz never sunk to Trump’s level, and he never will; in fact, I am quite certain that even as a teenager, Cruz had more class, more manners, and more common decency than Trump will ever have.
Most bizzare comment you ever read? I guess you never read any of your own comments.
Like all sociopaths and serial killers Cruz feels his own hurts deeply but has no feeling or empathy for the hurts he dishes out to others. That is how he can make his vile attacks on a beautiful mother like Melania without any feeling whatsoever and then turn around and be so irreconilably butt hurt over Trump responding in kind.
Cruz is a clear sociopath of almost no socially redeeming qualities as 98 out of 100 senators attested by their silence in the primary and as the entirevnation saw last night.
In his cold calculating mind he evaluated all options and permutations but smart as he is made a huge miscalculation. He forgot that if Trump picked good conservative for VP that person would displace him as the leader of the conservative wing of the GOP. Cruz’s only chance to maintain his leadership was to become Trump’s VP.
I’ll give you a D- for trolling… unless you’re serious. If you are, I suggest you check yourself in at the nearest mental health facility.
Sane, serious, and ACCURATE.
Indeed, Cruz is sane, serious and most of all, ACCURATE–and if voting your conscience is alarming to you and threatening to your candidate, then what does it say about him (and by extension, you)?
There was no point in having Cruz present, let alone speak unless there was a certainty that Donald Trump would be able to repair his relationship with Ted Cruz. Trump was apparently unable to close that deal, thereby painting not just Cruz, but himself into a corner. Trump says he saw the prepared text two hours before Cruz went live, but decided to let it happen. Couldn’t very well ask Cruz to go home at that point, could he?
The failure here is that a drop-dead date for agreement should have been no later than Monday morning. No agreement, no Cruz attendance, no harm done. Every bit of this mess could have and should have been avoided. These are the types of mistakes that amateurs make, so everybody might as well get used to it. Rookies make rookie mistakes.
. . . unless, as someone suggested, Trump is just playing reality show and trying to set up Ted as the one to hate. Hopefully will backfire on the pretender.
Awesomeness, Kemberlee!
Cruz was really in a difficult position with, I’m sure, his political side pulling him toward an endorsement (even the tepid sort of ones offered by most Republicans: “ew, Trump’s a stinker . . . but hey! He’s better than Hillary”), and his non-political side duly and rightly outraged at the vicious fantasies and lies posited by Trump as fact about him, his wife, and his father.
No matter what he chose, he was going to evoke outrage and anger. As far as I’m concerned he not only made the right choice, he made the only choice he could make. One that is firmly in-line with his record, and one that I do not believe will hurt him in the long run.
For my personal part, I was a teensy bit worried–for the first time–that Cruz would abandon principles for politics. I’m over the moon that he did not. Principles and character still matter to a lot of people, and I am one of those people.
All of this hoopla is incredibly interesting to me on another level. The average Joe or JoAnne watching Cruz’s speech wouldn’t notice that Cruz didn’t endorse Trump. They just heard a Senator congratulate Trump, talk about how great America is and can be again, and urge them to vote their conscience . . . at an RNC/Trump event. The vast majority of viewers heard, in other words, an endorsement. It’s only we political junkies who know–or care about–the back story here.
As to your (and Cruz’s) question: it says that Trump supporters know full well that their candidate is so deeply flawed, so distrusted, and so loathed that a call to vote one’s conscience sounds, to them, like an indictment. In other words, it reveals a great deal about Trump and his base. If Cruz had won the primary and Trump had said “vote your conscience,” not a single Cruz supporter would have a problem with it.
Ted shown through!
Rick (“Trump is a cancer”) Perry sold out, and is dead to me now.
Perry’s been dead to me since he signed his own version of the DREAM Act in Texas and used public funds for college tuition for illegals. It didn’t help when he started pushing “Islamic history and culture” studies in Texas K-12 schools. It further didn’t help when he denounced part of Jan Brewer’s controversial immigration law in AZ.
I could go on. But why bother? He’s done.
Wasn’t he also the one pushing mandatory HPV vaccines for girls as well?
Yep. And he didn’t just push it, he actually signed an executive order attempting to legislate from the executive. Awful man.
This is for Fuzzy: so, Perry is another side of the pen-and-phone form of politician. Grand! (eyeroll)
Precisely, FG.
“No matter what he chose, he was going to evoke outrage and anger”
No – he could have stayed home. He came to the convention to set himself up fior the 2020 election. It’s common knowledge to the polically informed that he’s preparing to run in 2020. By telling people to vote their conscience, I believe he was trying to suppress the Trump vote. Where is his conscience when it comes to the Supreme Court nominees who will be appointed in the next few years? Oh no, someone “trashed” his wife? Trump retweeted a photo of Heidi (OK, it was not very flattering) and added the sentence “be carefull or I’ll spill the beans on your wife”. In my opinion, Ted should have said “go ahead” especially if there wasn’t anything to hide. If Trump wins, will Cruz be unable to work with the new president because he’ll still be defending the honor of his wife? Where I come from also, a man would give him a knuckle sandwich and the matter would be over. He wouldn’t decline to take action and then just keep whining about it.
Doing so was just so “high school”. For the very life of me, this is not the sort of thing I would imagine, say, Adlai Stevenson, Dwight Eisenhower, or even the plain-spoken and brash Harry Truman ever having done if the mobile phone had existed in their respective days.
You raise an interesting question, UKT. But the decision to stay home or not was also a tough one. If he stays away, he looks petty and petulant (like wretched Jeb! Bush). Additionally, he had watched, as we all did, what happened when Rubio tried to avoid the convention. He was bullied and harangued and lambasted until he finally, grudgingly, agreed to attend and to speak. Cruz really didn’t have an option in this if you think about it fairly.
And let us not pretend that Trump’s disgusting and base attacks on Cruz and his family were limited to that one instance. No. Let us remember, please, that Trump repeatedly claimed that Cruz’s dad was in a photo with Lee Harvey Oswald; the implication being clear and picked up by his Trump trolls (including those on this site who go so far in their vicious lies as to insist Cruz admitted it was his dad; that is ludicrous). Let us also remember that there is not one lie that Trump points to that supports his “Lyin Ted” nonsense. Not one. Yet Trump’s minions repeat it as gospel.
Cruz was very clear that he didn’t want to engage in personal attacks and the typical political BS on the campaign trail, saying repeatedly that he and Trump were friends and there wouldn’t be a “cage match.” It was Trump who violated that . . . over and over.
As to the Supremes: look, the Dems are poised to win the Senate this year. I see no Trump interest at all, either from his campaign or from his rabid fans, in ensuring that the Senate remains under GOP control. They want to “burn it all down,” and they’ll never vote for those slimy, two-faced, do-nothing Republicans in Congress.
Okey-dokey, but you all might want to review which Congressional body has to confirm SCOTUS nominees. Trump can nominate a Scalia clone, and without the Senate, he gets nothing. He’ll be forced to “compromise” on his nominee and nominate someone like his frothing-at-the-mouth leftist sister whom the Dems will love, love, love. No worries, though, Trump fans will find a way to rationalize that, too.
You can bleat about the Supreme Court all day long, but the nomination of a Supreme means zero if that nominee cannot be confirmed. And it is people like Ted Cruz in the Senate who will vote for a conservative justice, including one nominated by Trump.
“As to the Supremes: look, the Dems are poised to win the Senate this year. I see no Trump interest at all, either from his campaign or from his rabid fans, in ensuring that the Senate remains under GOP control. They want to “burn it all down,” and they’ll never vote for those slimy, two-faced, do-nothing Republicans in Congress.”
At the risk of being a bully, you keep pushing this meme, that trump supporters have no interest in keeping the senate with a republican majority. Did you just conjure this out of thin air or can you support your assertion? It is your actual opinion that the trump supporters, the ones that voted in the republican primary’s, are going to vote trump and then vote democrat for all the senate seats?
I think you’ve lost your way.
It is a tough year for the republicans, having more seats up for grabs, and several in tenuous area’s for republicans. That is true no matter who is at the top of the republican ticket. If trump is capable of winning in the fall, and of course I think he is, that is going to help the downticket.
Or, you could pick another loser like Romney and guarantee a loss at the top and downticket.
Fair question, Barry, and no, I didn’t make it up. Look at the comments on posts about the House and Senate races this year, and you’ll see comment after comment railing against the GOP and all its Congressional pols. With sarcastic comments like “What’s the answer? Elect more Republican politicians!”.
This “burn it down” mentality isn’t just prevalent here at LI, it’s all over social media and in posts on blogs supporting Trump. The idea seems to be to vote for Trump and the heck with the down ticket races because all Republicans are traitors and do-nothing losers.
Are you seriously telling me that you have no idea this is going on amongst your Trump fan compatriots?
“Are you seriously telling me that you have no idea this is going on amongst your Trump fan compatriots?”
No, Fuzzy, I’m not telling you that. I’m sure you have noticed this was a predominant theme among those not part of the GOPe prior to this election cycle, prior to trump entering the contest, even going back to the last election.
The fact is and remains, many of the republicans do nothing to oppose the democrats, other than during election time with words, that remain un-honored when they sit in the congress.
The fact is and remains, the GOPe has opposed “tea party” candidates at every chance, even declaring they would “destroy them”.
So, no it is not, as you put it every time, a symptom of the trump supporters, it is a symptom of the republican base, tired of being duped by the GOPe.
But I’m sure you know this.
Thanks for the answer.
You are correct on your points, but not in your connection of the dots, Barry. Yes, the Tea Party has long disdained and been disdained by the GOPe, and yes, the dissatisfaction of Trump’s base pre-dates Trump (and the Tea Party). However, even those now-Trump fans who identified with the Tea Party in ’09-’10 did not vote for Romney in 2012, preferring to do as they had done in ’08 and either not voting at all or voting only down-ticket. We’ve seen a lot of these people admit as much (or more accurately, brag about their role, if you follow their logic this cycle about #NeverTrumpers “electing” Hillary, in electing Obama not once but twice). These are two distinct groups, with two distinct goals, both of whom feel “duped.”
Merging them into one is not helpful because it lumps people like me in with people like you, and we are obviously not on the same page when it comes to Trump, right? Note, I’m not talking about Trump supporters who are doing so only because he’s what they are stuck with or even about Trump fans who supported him from the beginning as an outsider; I’m talking about the Trump fans who have turned off their brains, abandoned Constitutional principles, and opted for a demagogue savior who will “fix” America and supported him throughout the primaries. These are the “ooh! goody, can’t wait for that Civil War!” fringe. From what I have read of your thoughts in your comments, you are mostly on the “he’s an outsider” car of the Trump train, so you may be interested in electing Republicans and helping them keep their seats (unless you, like Trump, intend to work to get Cruz out even if that means a Democrat takeover of the Senate).
My point is that all of this is complicated. There are a variety of people supporting Trump for any number of reasons, and there are a variety of people refusing to support him for any number of reasons. One thing, though, is clear, the majority of Trump fans I’ve seen across the internet, including here at LI, have as much interest in keeping the Senate (and the House) as does their Dear Leader. In other words, zero interest . . . unless the interest is in primarying Cruz (from the Oval Office, should he win, no less!) and risking his seat going to a Democrat. I’m appalled by this, and not just because it’s Cruz. If a Republican presidential nominee is interested in forcing people out, why not Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and their ilk? You claim that “many of the republicans do nothing to oppose the democrats,” and Trump has now gone all-in on this. He not only doesn’t oppose Democrats, but he has a long history of donating to them, and has now declared that the only Senator he will actively oppose is Cruz (he’s also vowed to oppose Kasich). I’m sure you will find a way to rationalize this, but it might be worth pondering before engaging in a knee-jerk defense of Trump, no?
“…but it might be worth pondering before engaging in a knee-jerk defense of Trump, no?”
The problem with responding to you Fuzzy, is you make allegations based upon what you think, clouded by your hatred of anything Trump. But, of course, I will try 🙂
Let us start:
“However, even those now-Trump fans who identified with the Tea Party in ’09-’10 did not vote for Romney in 2012, preferring to do as they had done in ’08 and either not voting at all or voting only down-ticket. We’ve seen a lot of these people admit as much…”
I have no clue where you get your evidence of this. As far as I know, I am the only one that has said they didn’t vote for Romney in 2012, on LI anyway. I can’t say about other places. I have explained why as well. Including the fact that I didn’t blame anyone for voting Romney. Another small fact, withholding my vote for Romney means I helped re-elect Obama, there is no question about that. I don’t hide from that fact even though Obama is the worst and most loathsome president we have ever had. And I know Romney would have been better. But that is one person, me. Where do you find this evidence, that so many of the current trump supporters did the same?
Now, your comment also includes this “…or voting only down-ticket”. This directly contradicts your assertion (which is what my original response was directed at) that trump supporters do not care about the congress. this is not supported in anything you present here. In fact, I will state that trump supporters care as much about an effective congress as any of you TDS challenged Americans do. If we need to get rid of a “cantor” or a “ryan”, that doesn’t mean we do not support the downticket. It means we are fed up with a party that simply works with the other party to further the goals of the left. I personally know many Trump supporters, every one I know is active in political discussions, every one a “conservative” when it comes to governance.
So, I will state again, there is no evidence I see for your assertion. Stating you have read it on websites is not very convincing.
“From what I have read of your thoughts in your comments, you are mostly on the “he’s an outsider” car of the Trump train…”
In the beginning…
I was firmly for Ted Cruz. Trumps entry into the race was only mildly interesting. I knew next to nothing about trump other than the fact he was a wealthy developer. Never watched a trump show. But, he said some of the right things, if inartfully. But I chalked that up to not being a politician. I was wrong about that. He is inartful because he is, well, inartful.
I made the statement that trump was our murder weapon with respect to the GOPe as it became clear that even Cruz could not wreck that group, and make no doubt about it, I want that group destroyed. I have said and repeat her, you cannot defeat the left without an opposition party. In order to defeat the left, we must first defeat their enablers, the GOPe, then perhaps we can have a party that will fight back. That remains to be seen.
So, before I came to dislike Cruz, I had decided trump was the better fit to shake things up, Cruz was my second choice. I now believe Cruz is a phony, but he is our phony. And he would be a conservative in whatever position he should be in. I can live with that.
I think, should you actually try, that there are two sets of trump supporters. My type, those that have been actively engaged in politics, and support trump for the same reasons I do. The other type, the workers out in the heartlands, that are not super political types, but they know something is terribly wrong in this country and it is not getting better. They rejected Cruz and the others and selected trump as their choice. Do they see a wrecking ball? I don’t think so. I think they see someone that simply says what he thinks, even if sometimes contradicts something said in the past (or misconstrued statements).
Most of the nevertrump contingent here has tried to tell us trump supporters that trump is; a racist, a bigot, hitler, a KKK supporter, a “collectivist”, geez the list is long. And you wonder why we think you are deranged. Nothing could be further from the truth. He is an American. And he believes in the American people. How you can get anything else from what he has said is beyond the understanding of those that have listened to Trump and read his words. he believes, and I do, and many do, including many Cruz supporters, that the system is broken and is in need of repair from the top to the bottom. Can he do this? It will require a like minded group of legislators. Will he do this? nevertrupmers are always quick to tell us he is a Trojan horse, a fefty in sheeps clothing, come to move us further to the left. I find that to be a yuuuge load of poppycock. There is nothing to suggest this.
“You claim that “many of the republicans do nothing to oppose the democrats,” and Trump has now gone all-in on this. He not only doesn’t oppose Democrats, but he has a long history of donating to them, and has now declared that the only Senator he will actively oppose is Cruz (he’s also vowed to oppose Kasich).”
Are you suggesting that the republicans have been opposing the democrats? No, I know you are not. So let’s dispense with such an absurd notion.
He donated to all parties. More to the republicans than to democrats, at least over say the last 10 years 9i’m not going to bother to look it up again). Businessman operating out of NYC. A system rigged starting at the federal level and continuing all the way down to the city level. It is the game set up. Want that permit approved? How hard is it to understand this?
I have never said trump is a conservative. He is a conservative on the important issues, and has been consistent going back at least 15 years. Out of control illegal immigration. Foreign involvement with no commitment to simply winning and keeping our guys from death. Bad, bad trade deals. We do not have free trade, we have trade deals, and the middle class gets shafted in nearly everyone. I know because I have benefited from those deals, including NAFTA. Those positions are why trump supporters came to trump in large numbers.
As far as trump opposing your laundry list of democrats, he is just getting started. There is only one that can clearly be defeated in this election, that is Hillary. Until that happens, everything else is just window dressing. There is simply no chance in a million years of defeating Pelosi and schumer is there? One at a time.
Cruz/Kasich – trump is firing a shot across the bow. If you continue to actively work to elect hillary, then you are part of the opposition. Not hard to understand. Cruz and Kasich are doing just that. If you don’t want to fight with trump then don’t support the opposition. You will see it different, but that is precisely what is happening. Well, you asked.
This might be worth pondering before engaging in a knee-jerk slam of Trump, no?
A long and thoughtful response, Barry, thank you. I will address only a few of your points because it’s late and we seem to just go around and around (though I do appreciate your continued willingness to engage in dialogue with me).
As to hard-core Trump fans boasting about voting for neither McCain nor Romney . .. Read the comments at Alex Jones’ nutso site, at the Conservative Treehouse, at Gateway Pundit, at Breitbart, on Twitter . . . pretty much anywhere that Trump supporters have been converging to share their pride in finally having a Republican they can vote for. These comments go back for months and months, almost a year. It’s not a secret, and it’s certainly not hard to find. Try Google.
You no sooner finish pointing out that I over generalize before diving into quite the over-generalization of your own: “Most of the nevertrump contingent here has tried to tell us trump supporters that trump is; a racist, a bigot, hitler, a KKK supporter, a “collectivist”, geez the list is long.”
Granted, I don’t read every comment on LI (or even most of them), but I don’t recall seeing any of these except that Trump is a collectivist. That we do see a lot. But Trump’s not truly a collectivist. Trump doesn’t care about wealth redistribution, and he certainly is not interested in social justice warrior-ing. If he gets praised enough and sucked up to enough, he’ll do whatever it takes to continue receiving showers of praise, but that’s a character flaw, not a sign of any collectivist inclinations. Sure, collectivists just pretend to care about “social justice” and the divergent and divisive way they segment Americans, but they do focus on that as a means to an end. Trump doesn’t bother. In his focus on nationalism and isolationism, he is a bit collectivist, but that’s as an afterthought. I’m not sure he really believes half the stuff he says; he’s always playing a part, “working” the “right wing crazies” he disdains. He wants to be in charge, he wants to be the boss, he wants to be, in effect, a monarch-type figure with authoritarian rule, not labor under some premise of collectivity that he simply doesn’t have time for (or the attention span for).
But I digress. My point is simply that we are talking at cross-purposes. When I say something, you come back with a statement that I am contradicting myself or otherwise undermining my own argument (I do not), and then you go on to undermine or contradict your own (I’m sure you would argue that you do not). This can go on forever unless one of us stops it, and I’ll just save us that time and end it here. 🙂
I must have missed Trump’s attempts to position himself with Congress to fix Washington and repair the broken system. How is he going to do this? What specific plan has he posited?
And Trump didn’t just donate to Democrats. He donated in specific races to Democrats over the Tea Party candidate. He did this many times, and he did it in key races like the Harry Reid – Sharon Angle race. You can rationalize that all you want, but that dog won’t hunt. He picked sides, and the side he picked was not ours.
Your sad defense of Trump attacking Cruz and Kasich, effectively campaigning against the two GOP primary opponents who . . . um, aren’t in the race anymore is kind of hard to read. I’m sure it was harder to write. You clearly understand that this is a huge mistake by Trump. He won. They lost. It’s over. Sure, Cruz could have gotten up there and offered the same tepid “endorsement” as Ryan and McConnell (gee, that Trump sure sucks rocks, but let’s talk about how bad Hillary is!), but to what end? Cruz already lost you guys long ago, so why go against his own principles to mouth lies to make Trump feel better or to make his base . . . what? Not hate him? Trump fans will always hate Cruz. NOTHING he could have said would have changed that. He knows that. I know that. You know that.
The larger point is why on earth is Trump, the official GOP nominee for president of the United States, spending days trashing a senator from Texas and the governor of Ohio when he has already beaten them? Why? It couldn’t possibly be a strategy to beat Hillary and win the general election. So what is it? Why is Trump fixated like some kind of obsessed stalker on Cruz and Kasich? It makes no sense at all unless you allow yourself to admit that Trump is a thin-skinned narcissistic little girl crying about the fact that two kids on the schoolyard don’t want to be her bestest friend. It’s pathetic beyond words and speaks very loudly to Trump’s (lack of) character.
Angry comments like “Trump’s disgusting and base attack’s”, “vicious lies”, and “frothing at the mouth”, are antithetical to polite and engaging discourse. I’d would enjoy a debate with you if you could control your anger. I’m truly sorry for you that your candidate lost but am happy for the millions os us who support Trump. Full disclosre: I donated and supported Ted Cruz until I saw his deceptive behaviour.
The Cruz national career is over. He is getting condemned from all sides of the party. I have no idea what you are reading. It tells me everything about all of you that you cannot see how terribly wrong last night was for Cruz.
The party doesn’t need Cruz any more. There are others who can fill his space without all the drama that his lousy campaign generated. He doesn’t care about the party, doesn’t really care about America either. It’s all about his ambition. His lust for power.
He lost. All the shenanigans failed. There is no magic in Ted Bergdahl Cruz.He’s just another petty two-faced pol.
Um. So Cruz has gone from being the darling of the GOPe who cannot be trusted to “out” and “over” now? You people make no sense at all.
There is nothing two-faced about Cruz; Trump, however, is happy with his plan to win the presidency by playing you, in his words, “rightwing crazies” like fiddles. Look up the term “useful idiot,” and you may just see your own smiling face.
And let’s not forget that it was the GOPe who were embracing Trump over Cruz.
“vote your conscience” because the boys in the back room will attempt(as Cruz and others in fact did) to make your vote meaningless, and put forth their candidate and policies anyway.
“vote your conscience” was meaningless virtue signaling.
“…the boys in the back room will attempt(as Cruz and others in fact did) to make your vote meaningless…”
I like some of what you post, but you’re an idiot for suggesting that an open floor vote was an attempt by “the boys in the back room” to subvert anything. As things turn out, it was the other way around.
Jes’ sayin’…
Knowing they did not have a pray in Cruz’s anointed heaven to change the GOP candidate what other possible point was the floor vote than to damage the GOP TICKET?
Tell that to the Utah delegation who had their support announced as being for Trump when they were in fact pro Cruz.
I voted for Cruz. I understand his words and meaning.
He needs to learn to lie/nuance about some issues so he can get elected and give it his best shot to kill off gov programs. Between the rino’s and dems he’s got an uphill battle to win over the country.
Not sure the country’s overall intellectual abilities are high enough to understand the precipice we…oh look a squirrel…face.
I talked to so many women who used the word “creepy” to describe him including my sister who hates hitlery and would like to see a conservative in office. I really didn’t think he’d get the nomination because of those reactions to him. He needs to work hard to overcome all the negatives he’s been stuck with by his enemies. If it isn’t already too late.
That said, I’m still voting Trump because just the first 4 years of hitlery will doom the country.
“He needs to learn to lie/nuance about some issues to get elected” and this has been upvoted? Ted’s supporters claim his principles are what attracts them. This comment and upvotes surely make me shake my head.
You have no idea who is voting on these comments. Cruz should absolutely not lie and pander to get elected; he detests “campaign conservatives” and has spent his time in the Senate exposing GOP leadership who have told him that his whole-hearted attempts at fulfilling campaign promises were a waste of time.
If you are going to base your impression of Cruz on some anonymous “up” and “down” votes, there’s not much hope that you’ll ever do much more than shake your head. You might want to try getting informed, though, and not gobbling up gross lies and distortions of a good and decent man.
He’s in a poor strategic place. Between the lies of the MSM, dems and rino’s voters don’t give him enough credit.
I’d rather he lie cheat and steal to get into office and start dismantling gov programs and departments than lose.
We’re at 19 trillion and change in debt, the truth didn’t win out in the primaries.
Make no mistake. What did in Cruz was stupidity and arrogance. He could have stayed home. He could have come but not spoken. He chose to speak. He created all this himself.
He thought he could get away with it, but he couldn’t. As evidenced by the fact he has to explain himself to his delegation The people in that crowd were mostly Ted Cruz delegates and he had to explain himself to them. What does that say?
In the end, no one will talk about this next week. he had no effect on Trump. He didn’t gain any supporters–well maybe Bill Kristol, and he lost plenty. And why for his own personal gratification. Sounds so Bill Clintonish.
Whats worse he was warned. By Ingraham, by may speakers before who said “keep your word”,including Michelle Obama. Of course this is the almightly White Horse Ted Cruz, why does he have to listen to other people?
Trump never violated his pledge.
Standard TV theme on every show since Perry Mason. Accused saying they will kill the victim. Saying it doesn’t make it so.
Trump threatend to break the pledge, he never actually did so.
Latest Cruz meaphor: own goal.
Hey diddle diddle Vizzini,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed,
To see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.
Trump breaks pledges all the time; it’s call renegotiating the deal.
The deal he wants to renegotiate right now is NATO. Judging by how he handles this convention, sowing discord everywhere and exacerbating the differences, if Trump is elected president NATO will fall apart and Poland and Ukraine will go to war.
And you thought Benghazi was bad.
Never have been a Cruz fan (as Senator or Presidential candidate, he’s a brilliant constitutional lawyer who would be a great SG with perhaps a future on the federal bench), but his stock rose with me after the speech.
I rang my first doorbell for the GOP in 1968. There weren’t many Republicans in Virginia back then and the “precinct captain” had over 150 precincts to manage so he was glad to have enthusiastic 15 year old volunteers.
– – –
I am Republican no more. I refuse to be a part of a party that would nominate a man of such low character, poor judgment, vulgar temperament, or idiotic beliefs. While I will continue to support candidates for lower offices, there will be an additional box on my checklist from now on.
I will never give a dime, a vote, or volunteer to help in any way, any candidate who endorses or supports Donald Trump. There is no expiration on this pledge. People of such low moral character won’t enlist me, ever.
In the past I’ve sometimes supported those who weren’t as conservative as I’d like, but only people of good character.
– – –
To the extent it is reasonably possible, neither will I hire, contract with, do business, or socialize with Trump supporters either. My heirs are already on notice that any overt support for Trump, ever, will remove them from my will.
I have no desire to associate with such people in any way. Take your ignorance, irrational anger, stupidity, xenophobia, racism, fascism, and general lack of human decency and keep it for yourselves.
Big News you have been a Hillary supporter since at least June of last year.
We always knew you were a Hillary democrat.
You were no supporter of any republican candidate.
Enjoy your lonliness. I’m sure your family sees and feels your love.
1) He did not have to come to the convention at all. Not all of the 16 primary candidates did.
2) He did not have to say nice things about Donald Trump, and if he had not, no one would have faulted him. All he would have had to do is emphasize that it is necessary for the survival of the country and Constitution that Hillary be defeated.
3) Immediately after his speech, his campaign sent out an fundraising email for himself to Republican activists. This was long planned.
4) The use of the phrase “Vote your conscience” has meaning beyond the mere words. From the beginning of the original #StopTrump movement, and into the #NeverTrump movement, they have consistently used “Vote your conscience” to mean to vote 3rd Party or to not vote for president. Functionally, he has called on his supporters to de facto support the election of Hillary.
5) On a narrower scope, he infuriated me. He used the 9 year old daughter of a murdered police officer as a campaign prop. I retired after 28 years as a Commissioned Peace Officer of the State of Colorado. I’ve had to explain to my brother, sister-in-law, and stepmother [who were raised in the old country, I was born and raised here] why I kiss my wife every time I leave. Kissing like that is definitely not a Chinese custom. I had to tell them, that every time I left for work, there was a chance I would never come home.
That is something that every cop understands. I agree with the opinion that Sheldon Adelson expressed to Cruz after the speech.
Subotai, yours is the ONLY comment worth reading out of all the comments posted so far. Excellent post.
Attempting to explain away Cruz’s little bitch behavior by others is not unexpected. Most of them have been consistently wrong about this election, Cruz, and Trump since June of 2015.
Cruz put his selfish ambition above the constitution and country he claims to love, but obviously doesn’t. Cruz is just the pocket protector wearing sore loser and little bitch that everyone who has ever worked with him always knew he was.
Cruz put on his suicide vest, walked on stage and just when the constitution and declaration of independence were in view pulled the detonator. Plain and Simple.
http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/07/21/coulter-its-cruz-who-is-the-little-bitch-who-cant-get-over-it/
http://www.breitbart.com/radio/2016/07/21/rudy-giuliani-cruz-cant-play-game-running-2020-disloyal-republican/
http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/07/21/jim-hoft-cruz-looked-like-a-complete-ass-dug-his-political-grave-with-speech/
But his former supporter and Reagan conservative Richard Vigurie still said it best:
After failing to endorse the Trump – Pence ticket last night, in eyes of most conservatives with whom I spoke, Ted Cruz became just another self-centered politician who walked back on a promise, failed to live up to his own Biblical standards and, when the battle raged the fiercest, put his own petty hurts before the future of his country and the conservative cause.
No, Gary Britt, you lying SOS. Viguirie said it best when he said…
“We’re talking about electing a man (Trump) potentially who may have serious psychological problems. I think he’s a serious narcissist. That should be frightening to America to put a narcissistic person in charge of our nuclear arsenal.”
He continued, “I’m just very concerned about his mental stability and his moral background, or lack thereof, which he brags about. He has no grounds that drive him morally.”
But while Viguerie believes Trump is definitely the wrong choice for president, he said the voter passion driving Trump’s success is intense and legitimate.
“They are white hot with anger at our leaders in this country, particularly Washington Republican leaders. The Republican primary voters are just furious,” he said. “They’re angry at the lies, the betrayal of the Republican leaders. They’re the ones that created Donald Trump. They can’t do anything about it now. Only the conservatives [can].”
In addition to labeling Trump a narcissist, Viguerie also calls the front-runner a “pro-business liberal Democrat” and encourages conservative candidates and activists to do the same.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2016/02/viguerie-only-conservatives-can-stop-narcissist-trump/#EYjj31783BlMm1wY.99
Viguirie has now called himself a liar and a coward by attacking the only one in the race to remain true to himself.
You don’t identify a Collectivist thug, and then attack another conservative for failing to support that same Collectivist thug.
Do you, LIAR…???
SB, you make some great points that are worth addressing:
1) He did not have to come to the convention at all. Not all of the 16 primary candidates did.
He kind of did have to come; Cruz didn’t invite himself. Look what happened when Rubio tried to decline several times. The Trump people wanted him (and Rubio) there . . . for whatever reason.
2) He did not have to say nice things about Donald Trump, and if he had not, no one would have faulted him. All he would have had to do is emphasize that it is necessary for the survival of the country and Constitution that Hillary be defeated.
He didn’t say anything negative about Trump and congratulated him on his nomination. Any casual listener (i.e. none of us here at LI, but the majority of Americans watching) would not see a problem with Cruz’s speech and would hear it as an endorsement.
3) Immediately after his speech, his campaign sent out an fundraising email for himself to Republican activists. This was long planned.
So did Trump’s. And Ryan’s. And Christie’s. And . . . um, well, you get the picture. Pretending that Cruz is the only politician to send out fund-raising emails after a public speaking event is disgraceful and dishonest.
4) The use of the phrase “Vote your conscience” has meaning beyond the mere words. From the beginning of the original #StopTrump movement, and into the #NeverTrump movement, they have consistently used “Vote your conscience” to mean to vote 3rd Party or to not vote for president. Functionally, he has called on his supporters to de facto support the election of Hillary.
Tortured logic. Voting one’s conscience does not mean anything but what it means. No dog whistles, no secret codes, no other random leftist “coding.” Enough with the lunacy, please.
5) On a narrower scope, he infuriated me. He used the 9 year old daughter of a murdered police officer as a campaign prop. I retired after 28 years as a Commissioned Peace Officer of the State of Colorado. I’ve had to explain to my brother, sister-in-law, and stepmother [who were raised in the old country, I was born and raised here] why I kiss my wife every time I leave. Kissing like that is definitely not a Chinese custom. I had to tell them, that every time I left for work, there was a chance I would never come home.
You have every right to be infuriated if that is how you feel. But I will say one thing about this, Ted Cruz has staunchly supported law enforcement all along, and he does not waiver and start chastising Americans for free speech (as Trump did when he said that we shouldn’t “provoke” radical Islamists.).
More generally, I hate hate hate hearing any and all politicians, Cruz included, burble on about this person’s plight or that one’s. It always strikes me as insincere and packaged and fake. It’s something that too many politicians on the right have been picking up in recent years from the left, and I think it’s intended to show that they, too, “care” and are “good” people who are “in touch” with the average American. I think it’s just crap . . . no matter if it’s Obama or Hillary or even Cruz. So on this larger point, I’m with you. On the point, specifically, about law enforcement, I am not. Cruz is and has always been a staunch defender of the rule of law, of our nation’s law enforcement, and of individual officers (we don’t hear about his phone calls, notes of condolence, and visits to the families of the fallen officers in Texas . . . but they happened.).
No, Cruz didn’t have to come to the convention, but he said he’d go there to fight for conservative values. You see, he wasn’t there for Donald Trump, he was there for the country.
He came for the 600 delegates he had in the room and the 12 states he won
Try 484 delegates.
Almost a hundred of Teds uncommitted delegates “voted their conscience” for Trump
Ted Cruz went because he is so arrogant he thought he would hit a home run. His arrogance did him in.
Additional points:
1. Trump and his people knew what Cruz was going to say (they had copies of the speech he ultimately delivered) and approved Cruz coming and giving it. This wasn’t some kind of ambush by Cruz. “I can tell you, last night when I addressed the convention, I addressed the convention because Donald Trump asked me to. Donald Trump didn’t ask me to endorse. I talked to him three days ago and I told him I wouldn’t endorse.”
2. In Cruz’s comments to the Texas Delegation this morning, he made it clear that he could still vote for Trump, and that a big part of his reason to give the speech was to provide suggestions on how Trump could win over those who are currently reluctant to vote for him. Question from Texas delegate: “If you were asked to give a piece of advice to Donald Trump, what would you tell him to woo and draw and attract the Constitutionalists to join and rally around him?” Cruz: “That is what I intended to do in every word of that speech last night. It was an outline to Donald Trump and his campaign, this is how you win. […] If we go to November and the dominant word is ‘Trump,’ ‘Hillary’ or ‘E-mail server,’ we’re going to lose. We will win if the dominant message to the voters here is ‘Freedom.’ That’s how you win an election, by deserving to win an election.”
3. In a political climate where many big names in the party are refusing to leave their desks and do anything to assist Trump, and some are openly declaring they will “Never” even vote for him, Cruz’s appearance at the convention to congratulate Trump, lay out the danger that Hillary represents, and talk up some of Trump’s policy positions without making any swipes at Trump, is a pretty good “endorsement” by itself even without some explicit “I love this guy”, it’s far more support than many are willing to give. And that goes double given that Cruz has more reason to hold a grudge against Trump than anyone.
4. Cruz hasn’t ruled out openly endorsing Trump even now, there are still several months to go before the election. Cruz: “I’m watching and listening to make that decision and when I talked about holding people accountable, that applies to all of us. That’s what I’m doing. I’m watching and listening. The election isn’t today. I’m listening to the candidate. I don’t intend to criticize Donald. I intend, like a voter, like all of us, just to listen and make the best judgment I can.” A cynic might even wonder if that’s the whole plan behind Trump having Cruz appear last night — it’d be fantastic PR if sometime between now and November Cruz suddenly announces that even he has become convinced of Trump’s presidential worthiness after his initial misgivings… Might all this be political theater?
What have we become when we fault a man for refusing to advance the prospects of another man who publicly maligned and shamed his wife and father? Some call Trump’s attack on Heidi Cruz mere pettifoggery, what do they call the Cruz’ wedding vows? Are they too mere pettifoggery?
If there was pettifoggery involved anywhere in this campaign, it was the pledge to support the winning candidate. Had this been the Democrat campaign, would we stand fully behind a corrupt Hillary in the name of politics? In the name of winning no matter the cost?
With such principles in place, what sort of country would we have? Is there to be no consequences for Trump’s actions? Where else will Trump malign the innocent? Was he punished when he attempted to steal an old widow’s home for a casino parking lot? Was that casino was so much more important than allowing one old woman to die in peace in her own home? What kind of nation have we become?
Is Senator Cruz is expected to tell his wife to suck it up? Is Senator Cruz expected to tell his children that their mother and their grandfather do not deserve his and by extension, their love and support?
The nation I fought for does not require such slimy behavior of its citizens. The nation I fought for would not reward a man such as Trump the honor of campaigning for the highest office in the land.
The nation I fought for has died but we haven’t even given it a decent burial.
I never thought I would be as ashamed of my nation as when we turned our backs upon our allies in Viet Nam; well, this ‘pettifoggery’ comes pretty damn close.
What’s wrong with “vote your conscience”? Nothing in the abstract, but everything in the context. The words were code words. “Vote your conscience” was the phrase used by the NeverTrumpers during the efforts to force an open vote on the convention floor. It was the advertising slogan. “Vote your conscience” was the code phrase for “Dump Trump and pick [insert name of favored candidate here] instead.”
You can’t use words over and over and then expect people not to remember why they were used the way they were used just a few days earlier. People are not that stupid. So when Senator Cruz exclaimed “vote your conscience” in his speech, everyone knew what he meant. They knew the code.
As noted by Fuzzy, above, and by Ace of Spades today over at his place, you can’t hammer Trump as the NeverTrumpers do and then pretend that this doesn’t help Hilarity. Of course it does — trashing one candidate helps the other. That’s how politics work in a two-party system. If you refuse to vote for (campaign for, etc) Trump, you’re helping Hilarity win in November. She’ll thank you after the election.
So the real question is, simply, who do you want as your next president? “Neither” is not on the ballot. That may be a crying shame in your view, but that’s how it is. Johnson is a cop-out choice, Stein is a choice for only for the hardest Left. The winner will be either Trump or Hilarity. Those are your realistic choices. Refuse to vote for Trump and you allow Hilarity to win. After all, isn’t the reverse message the covert signal being sent to Bernie supporters?
I see Hillary Clinton as an existential threat to our republic. Trump may be a lot of things, but existential threat he’s not. That settles how I vote. I wish I could vote “for” someone, but in the end I will vote “against” my worst fear.
Steve you forgot the biggest part: preventing a Supreme Court Justice WIlliam Jefferson Clinton .
Hopefully: he’ll croak in a few years.
Then she gets to replace him, and the cleaning bill for his office will be humongous.
Ted Cruz’s appearance and failure to endorse this petty despot was about the only bright spot of this convention for me.
If Trump’s actions to date are any indication, he’s going to make Obama look like a rank amateur in the petty and spiteful divisiveness category. Hell, he can’t even unite his own party… how is he going to unite the entire nation?
In other news rumors are Bill Clinton is pushing Hillary to pick Corey Booker for VP so she will always have somebody to carry her bags.
(Note to the PC crowd this joke is based on Bill Clinton’s comments about Obama in 2008. Yes he really said that about Obama)
Cruz”s lack of an endorsement will not affect Donald winning the election and Ted will not be the Commander in 2021.
Cruz needs Trump supporters to get elected (simple math).
Cruz standing firm on principal is an oxymoron even to lots of ex Cruz supporters.
Ace of Spades tells the infantile NeverTrump retards to grow up
“But a childish morally-unserious fantasy has infected the #NeverTrump not-so-intellgentsia, that they can agitate for Hillary Clinton — by relentlessly disparaging Trump — and somehow, they are not responsible for the consequences of the Hillary presidency they are bucking for.”
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/364874.php
Not-so-intelligentsia — rofl! Well done Ace!
Rags gave us
“T-rump is a stinking, lying, pathological Collectivist thug.”,
which I believe is true.
Then we have JYLD gave us
“Cruz is a clear sociopath of almost no socially redeeming qualities as 98 out of 100 senators attested by their silence in the primary and as the entire nation saw last night.”,
which is starting to sound plausible.
But this is the thing. Hilary as President of the United States will be an unmitigated total disaster. Absolutely. For all his flaws, Trump could be a disaster, but we won’t know until we get there. He might be ok. The chance of Hilary being ok is either Slim or None, and Slim has left town.
The objective is to stop the Clinton Crime Family and the leftist kooks. Trump is sort like starting a back fire to stop the main forest fire. Once we get the main fire contained we still have to contain Trump.
I will vote for the horrible man Trump over the horrible, horrible, horrible, evil Hilary, the Crooked.
“Cruz is a clear sociopath of almost no socially redeeming qualities as 98 out of 100 senators attested by their silence in the primary and as the entire nation saw last night.”
But that’s both a lying claim and an assessment by a moron.
Before he left the race, Cruz had MORE endorsers from the Senate than Der Donald. The moron doesn’t know or care about facts, just T-rumpian memes.
He also doesn’t know a sociopath from his own ass.
Rags, your head must be really hurting thinking your way.
Let start from the basics again …Cruz lost the primaries and no matter what you say, that is not going to change it.
Cruz does not know how to win. Period! Game over. Any positive points you made about Cruz are now lost on me. Only Senator I care about is Sessions, and he is backing Cruz. You argument seems to support that Cruz is the “establishment candidate” which tells us why he lost.
“Before he left the race, Cruz had MORE endorsers from the Senate than Der Donald.”
How many was that?
A sitting Senator. LOL.
For all his principal, Ted made himself the center stage. Ted, if that is all you were going to do, you could have stayed home. Trump can say, look I tried to come to terms with him, and he still insults me.
I just watched A Few Good Men again. While I was never in the military, let alone the U. S. Marine Corps, I did play an ex-Marine on stage once. They had a code. While your family is important to you, that is wonderful. However, the Party, and the Country, are more important. You had your feelings hurt and now you want to hurt others. Given your choices, you could have said Donald is a lying sack of shit, but he is our sack of shit, and we need him to win. You put the spotlight on you when it should have been elsewhere. You blew it.
it seems this site is a watering hole for cruz faithfuls. it seems cruz faithfuls are taken by his flamboyant profession of christian and conservative values. but I see a very big disconnect from cruz faithfuls. by reneging on his sworn oath (as if to swear before God also) to support the winner of the brutal primaries cruz was shown to be an outright liar. God hates vehemently liars. cruz accused trump of dirty tricks and improprieties against him yet cruz had done the same things throughout his campaign(it is vintage politics) so nobody is immaculate here. by being a hypocrite cruz again showed himself a liar and his monicker “lying ted” is not inaccurate. for cruz faithfuls to defend the man with his latest egregious lying, I suppose your fealty lies on a man , cruz and not on God.
https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/07/levin-if-trump-loses-this-is-the-moment-that-sealed-his-fate
Listen and learn. Then look up “anticipatory breach”.
Hilary is a crook, cold and calculating.
Trump is a shit show.
For the first time in my life I am looking outside the Republican Party for national leadership. I’m seriously considering Gary Johnson.
QUESTION: “What does it say about the current state of political discourse when “vote your conscience” is provocatively controversial?”</I<
ANSWER: Quite simply put, it means you are pretending to be naive, while desperately avioding to appear as the lapdog Cruz-sycophant you are.
CRUZ LOST THE PRIMARIES.
The Convention is a Pep Rally to "gather 'round" the Nominee – DONALD J TRUMP – to unite voters towards victory.
Instead, JudasCruz used the generous opportunity to speak as a self-interested advertisement for himself, while simultaneously legitimizing the AIDING AND ABETTING OF THE ELECTION OF HILLARY #NeverTrump thugs.
p.s. You KNOW the “conscience” schtick is nothing more than a #NeverTrumper call to vote for libertarian or other 3rd Party just so you don’t vote for Trump…nudge nudge wink wink.
Catch your “innocence” vapors elsewhere, sweetie.
I normally would not have a problem with Cruz’s excuse to dislike Trump and his refusal to endorse Trump. However, everyone must remember that he had just finished a speech where Cruz talked about how people must come together, how people must forgive the insults and such that makes them angry, and so forth, because party unity and winning over Hillary and the Democrats is so much more important. So if Cruz is making such a huge plea/demand that we all practice forgiveness for the sake of winning over Hillary, doesn’t it seem a bit hypocritical to then cite his unforgiving anger as the reason why he will not endorse Trump?
Yes, X 1,000
Cruz’s explanation is ‘politics by West Side Story’. These adolescent, testosterone fuelled mating and territorial rituals of teenagers are played out every day in high schools. Move it to West Texas, add some 32 Ford hot rods and he’s Flathead Ted.
It might make a great musical, but it’s hardly presidential and it’s certainly not mature behavior.
He couldn’t put his feelings aside for the good of the party and country he claims to love.
Or perhaps I’m wrong. Maybe he’s Flip Wilson’s Geraldine Jones – The Devil (Trump) made me do it!
Cruz doesn’t want you to vote your conscience. He wants everyone to vote HIS conscience. I think Trump voters are voting their conscience and Cruz voters are voting their conscience. By calling out Trump voters and insinuating they are not voting for what they think is good he is implying that they are bad but his voters are good. It is horse-feathers and people are tired of the constant virtue signaling and assignation of bad motives or evil when someone doesn’t agree with your particular brand of “good”. Enough Ted. Go back to work in the Senate.
Don’t take him at his word.
Instead, pull something out our ass. Perfect sense for a Trumpian.
Cruz was a sore loser and a whiner.
Politics is ugly. Always has been, and probably always will be.
People you hated yesterday are suddenly your bud.
It’s the way it works. There are winners and losers.
So… what Cruz did was political suicide.
I will never vote for him in the future.
It doesn’t speak well for your character that you think Cruz should have shown more loyalty to your “cult of personality” political hero than his own family.
Don’t vote for him, Twanger, since you obviously prefer political prostitutes. I seriously doubt he committed political suicide. He would have committed political suicide if he did what you think he should have done. Just bend over and take it.
Trump is basically planning to sell out conservatives and cut deals with the Democrats. He’s already shaping up to be a disaster. It’s going to be the Republicans that abandoned any principles or values they ever pretended to have to get onboard the Trump train who’ll rue the day. But that won’t included Cruz.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trump-ok-with-being-free-agent-if-senate-gop-majority-falls/article/2596399
“What does Donald Trump think about Republicans maintaining their Senate majority?
“Well, I’d like thason to prefer Trump to Clinton goes down the toilet if that’s his attitude. It isn’t like we’re going to get any better SCOTUS nominees with Trump if he has to cut deals with Schumer as Senate majority leader to get anyone confirmed. They’ll be just as bad as anyone Clinton would have picked.
And Trump who was a Democrat until he was in his 60s likes Chuck Schumer; he said months ago he can work with Schumer, Pelosi, Reid, et al.
I’m not joking when I call the Trumpkin fanboi club a cult of personality. It is. No matter what he says or does you cultists will think it’s great. You are in deep denial about this guy.
The only reason left to vote for Trump over Clinton is that that Trump can be impeached and Clinton can not.
I’m not joking when I call the Cruz fanboi club a cult of personality.
Works both ways.
I just love the new nevertrump meme, he’ll be impeached. You’ve gotten everything else right…
No, actually it doesn’t work both ways. If Cruz was casually remarking he didn’t care if the GOP held it’s majority in the Senate I’d be opposed to Cruz, too. Because you don’t get the SCOTUS nominees you want unless you hold the majority in the Senate.
But that sort of forward thinking is apparently beyond the Trumptards.
Sorry, it works both ways. Which is why the cruz cult is blind to cruz, who cares about ted cruz first, everything else is second. You just shut your eyes to the political hijinks committed by cruz.
And I would vote for him in a heartbeat over the crooked nominee of the d party. Hell, I’d probably suck it up and vote Bush over that crooked commie, and that would be a tough one for me.
Cruz’s indignation is transparent to anyone not of the cult.
But enough about cruz, he’s done. He did himself in. Ego. It often gets in the way.
Evil electrons. The actual Trump quote from the article.
“‘Well, I’d like them to do that. But I don’t mind being a free agent, either,’ Trump replied when that question was posed to him.”
And I went on to say that if this is the case, since it is the case, then any reason to vote for Trump over Clinton other then than the fact he can be impeached goes down the toilet.
I have a problem swearing blind personal loyalty to a a man who demonstrates he has no loyalty to anything or anyone except his himself and his ambition.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/274640-trump-i-may-not-support-gop-nominee
“March 29, 2016, 10:22 pm
Trump revokes pledge to support GOP nominee
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Tuesday backed down from his pledge to support any GOP nominee, saying there are some Republicans he might not back.
‘I’ll see who it is,’ he told moderator Anderson Cooper during a CNN town hall in Milwaukee. ‘I’m not looking to hurt anybody. I love the Republican Party.’
Trump added he does not expect his Republican presidential primary rivals to back him should he become their party’s standard-bearer.
“I don’t want people to do something against their will,” he said before using Ted Cruz, who was asked the same question earlier, as an example.
‘I could see [Cruz] was having a hard time with a very simple question. I don’t want him to be tormented. I want him to be comfortable. I don’t need his support. I don’t want his support.’
Cruz strongly suggested he would not support Trump as the GOP nominee earlier Tuesday evening, but stopped short of a definitive answer.
‘I’m not in the habit of supporting someone who attacks my wife and attacks my family,’ he told Cooper during his own town hall appearance.
‘That is going beyond the line. I think that our wife and kids should be off limits. They don’t belong in the attacks.'”
I’ll leave the blind loyalty to you Trumpkin cult of personality types. The difference between me and you Trumpkins is that there are things my candidate could say or do that would make me withdraw my support. But you Trumptards, outside a one party Stalinist or Middle Eastern dictatorships, no one shows this kind of blind loyalty. Even then not voluntarily.
And yet Cruz’s largest benefactor, Robert Mercer (you know him, he owns Breitbart and Cambridge Analytics), just bailed on him. He really hammered him. I guess he is a Trumptard too. Say goodbye to money from Mercer (only about $11 million). Oh and forget about all that microtargeting as well.
“We are profoundly disappointed that on Wednesday night he chose to disregard this pledge. The Democratic Party will soon choose as their nominee a candidate who would repeal both the First and Second Amendments of the Bill of Rights, a nominee who would remake the Supreme Court in her own image. We need ‘all hands on deck’ to ensure that Mr. Trump prevails”.
“Unfortunately, Senator Cruz has chosen to remain in his bunk below, a decision both regrettable and revealing.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/24/us/politics/influential-donors-criticize-ted-cruz-for-his-gop-convention-speech.html?_r=2
Forget his silly excuse about his wife and father. This was all because he got his butt kicked by Trump. His ego is so large that he can’t admit to himself that he lost. So he just collected his toys and went home. He doesn’t care about the party, This is the Ted everyone talked about in the Senate. He’s a jerk. He is going to pay a heavy price for that. If Mercer is willing to go public like that you can bet many of the other donors feel that way too.
Well, well, he ticked off his major donors? I wonder if his nose is still attached to his face?
Such a nod amounts to a dramatic change in position for Trump, who made disdain of big-money politics a central part of his pitch during the primary contest, railing against super PACs that can accept unlimited contributions from individuals and corporations. He called them horrible and corrupting.
“I have disavowed all Super PACs, requested the return of all donations made to said PACs, and I am calling on all presidential candidates to do the same,” Trump said in a statement in October, distancing himself from a super PAC that had connections to his campaign. “The character of our country is only as strong as our leaders.”
Trump campaign officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
_________________________________________________
What were they going to say? “We pwned the voters!”
You’ve been duped, T-rump cultists. From the beginning.
What’s fascinating is that T-wamp (the mean girl from junior high) and his/her T-rump suckers cannot leave this alone.
You idiots and cultists HAVE to have GroupThink enforced, and like FillyGui, you’ll just make shit up to put in your One Minute Hate!
It’s a marvel to see people who EXCEED the Obama cultists!
There are consequences for Cruz’s betrayal. It seems obvious to everyone but the people here. He made a massive political miscalculation.