The Underpants Gnome Caucus

I have to preface this column with a disclaimer: I’m a big fan of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. His policy goals are my policy goals. But here comes the traditional “but.”

But although his goals are admirable and shared by conservatives across the country, he has no idea how to achieve them. In fact, his actions in the Senate, which are bringing him praise from conservative groups and grassroots activists, are harming the cause.

It’s an unpopular statement to make on the pages of Townhall. My column Thursday didn’t mention Cruz because it was written before he forced a cloture vote in the Senate on a debt limit increase. Yet, the comments, tweets and emails I received overwhelmingly cited his actions as its inspiration.

If I had that kind of foresight, I’d be a multibillionaire from lottery winnings. As it’s Friday and I’m writing another of these columns, this clearly is not the case.

But since his name was thrown around so frequently by people upset by my being a “sell-out,” a “closet Democrat,” a “squish” and much more, I think it’s important to revisit the subject of electoral strategy and the junior senator from Texas.

I would love it if Ted Cruz were president. But he’s not. He’s one of 45 Republicans in the 100-member Senate. If the other 44 were Cruz clones, and all were in the Senate, he/they still wouldn’t have enough votes to advance their agenda.

Sure, he could filibuster everything and shut down the government again, but the only thing that would accomplish would be to ensure there would be a lot of people referred to as “former Sen. Cruz” after the election this fall.

I fully support the limited government, Constitutional conservatism Ted Cruz desires, but I also recognize he has no strategy to achieve it.

After his move on the debt ceiling vote, he went on the Mark Levin Show to explain it. I know Mark a little from having interviewed and emailed him quite a bit, have enormous respect for him and consider him the best in the business. But he’s not exactly an impartial jurist.

In defense of his debt ceiling move, Cruz said, “If 41 Republicans had stood together and just voted ‘no,’ the clean debt ceiling, the blank check that President Obama and Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi wanted, would have been denied.” (The quote starts around 6:17.)

That’s where Cruz loses me, and the argument. Principle is not a plan. It’s part of the problem with Cruz. It’s one thing to stand on the sidelines and tell others how they should have acted/played/whatever, when you’re not in the game. But he’s acting like an observer and he is in the game.

Cruz went on to immediately talk about Gramm-Rudman-Hollings and the Budget Control Act, which shows just how ‘in the weeds” he lives. Yes, they’re important pieces of legislation from the past, but they mean nothing to anyone who isn’t already on his side. No persuadable voter, the people who swing elections, has ever uttered those words before, let alone voted either way because of them. If you’re talking to a group of activists or someone as educated and engaged as Mark Levin, it’s read meat. If you’re talking to anyone outside of that, it’s eyes-glazed-over and nobody’s home.

Yes, people should know and care about them, and the deficit and debt, but they don’t. Polls show majorities think the government should live within its means, but they’re much more concerned with jobs and the economy. Although all that is tied together, nobody makes that case in anything approaching a compelling way.

To make a difference, a politician must be able to convey important information in an easily understandable and even entertaining way. One may say this is a sad commentary on American culture, but that doesn’t change it even a little.

Ted Cruz plays well with people already on his side. That includes me, but it does not include a majority of the American public.

Yes, we are a center-right nation – poll after poll shows that. But what does it say about the ability of center-right politicians to convey that message when the center-right citizenry continues to elect and re-elect progressives? Those progressives – from President Obama on down – won by using center-right language and essentially lying to voters. They made better use of conservative language than actual conservatives.

Why? Because when he explains why he screwed many of his fellow party members, Cruz cited budget law from the 1980s; progressives beat him by talking to people like they’re normal human beings. They’re lying, but their lies are more compelling than the truth, even when presented by someone who actually believes it. That’s a huge problem. And it’s a problem Ted Cruz isn’t attempting to address.

Search his website. Look at the legislation he’s sponsored and co-sponsored. There aren’t a lot of victories there. Moreover, there are not a lot of solutions offered. Where is his grand vision for the country? It’s all well and good to say someone is doing something wrong, but you have to offer something in its place.

What would Cruz have done if he’d successfully filibustered the debt limit increase? He rightly wanted concessions, offsets and reforms, but what was his move when the Democrats and White House said “no?” What if they simply had refused to negotiate?

We don’t have to imagine the outcome. We saw it play out last October. How’d that work out again?

What Cruz doesn’t realize, or hopes you don’t realize, is Democrats and the White House will never negotiate.

Imagine you’re sitting across from al Qaeda leadership to talk peace. They want you and all Americans dead; you don’t want anyone to die. How do you negotiate with that?

Your opening offer is “Don’t kill us and we won’t kill you.” But they view killing us as their calling, and they’re perfectly willing to die. Do you find a middle ground with that? Some people can be killed, just not all? Everyone can have their left hand chopped off? What?

There is no answer because they just want to kill everyone. Progressives will not negotiate because they don’t care how their policies harm people. They believe their goal is noble – and if you have to harm people, trample rights, lie, whatever, along the way, well, that’s just what you have to do. The ends justifies the means.

You want to purge the Republican Party of “squishes,” I’m with you. But how about we do it from a position of power? A lot of the notes I got said we need to get rid of Sens. John McCain and Mitch McConnell before we do anything else. Great, but McCain isn’t up till 2016. And McConnell’s primary opponent said this week, “I'd be willing to lose the Senate if it meant keeping America.” It doesn’t.

If we don’t win the Senate in 2014, we lose the Senate until 2018, at the earliest. There simply aren’t enough vulnerable Democrats up in 2016. So this is it – our best chance for four years. If you want to burn calories and spend money and energy on Republican infighting, you may end up beating a few less-than-conservative senators and have a more principled caucus. But it still will be a minority caucus.

There’s a great South Park episode featuring “Underpants Gnomes,” gnomes who would steal kid’s underpants as part of their business plan. Their plan consisted of collecting underpants – then ? – and that would equal profit. The middle step, the important step, was missing. But the gnomes were convinced of the success of their plan nonetheless.

This, as best as I can tell, is the plan of those Republicans most vocal in their criticism of fellow Republicans. They are the “Underpants Gnome Caucus,” convinced their dislike of the current state of things will somehow change them. And Cruz is their chairman. If they don’t start thinking and acting strategically, or find that missing middle step to turn underpants into profit, they will be the most principled members of the minority party in Congress.

I look forward to reading how I’m awful and “the problem” in the comments, but I’d rather read a well-though-out alternative plan that can win.

The point is that if we could get a majority, the Senators and Representatives could do what they’re supposed to do: create laws and pass budgets, instead of letting Obama take over all the powers of all the branches.

But by doing nothing except projecting a negative image (that is, just a roadblock and not a way to something good), Cruz and people in his mold are certainly not inspiring voters to vote for their party in 2014.

Conservatives don’t have to rise to the Ronald Reagan communications level, which is a personal gift that not everyone has. Reagan was a master at communicating, perhaps at least to some extent because he had been an actor, but also because it was part of his personality. However, even without the charisma of Reagan, conservative ideas for the way forward can be presented in an attractive way.

I agree with people who have mentioned Walker as an example of a firm fiscal conservative but one who was able to gain popular support not only through his ideas rejecting the Dem policies at the time, but by giving a positive vision. He’s not exactly warm and fuzzy in his public persona, and it was easy to caricature him as sort of a dragon, but his positive program for the future won out. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Cruz offer anything positive.

I’d rather read a well-though[t]-out alternative plan that can win

This got me thinking...and as a result I understand something, that I did not, until this morning.

In order for politics to be successful, disparate people, or groups of people, have to be willing to negotiate their disparities for the sake of a common goal. At the most intimate levels of politics, such as a home or a neighborhood, this is fairly easy, for two reasons: the disparate groups (husband and wife, or neighbors on the block) tend to be invested in each other and so are more willing to set aside differences, and if the effort fails, separation is possible (the husband/wife can divorce, people can move out of the neighborhood). At the national level, however, this becomes much more difficult: the disparate groups only know about each other what the media tells them, and the only means of separation is civil war. This may be one reason why representative republicanism was chosen by the Founders over direct democracy, so that the political negotiations would become easier...except that there was the presumption that all sides in a dispute would be willing to negotiate in order to obtain the common goals.

And here is where the light bulb was switched on in my head this morning. Those of us on the right, whether conservatives or libertarians, know that the left has no desire to meet us on common ground: we want to persuade the left of the truth of our positions, while the left, given the opportunity, would exile us from any places of authority, perhaps from any places at all. It is impossible to "do politics" with people who want you gone, perhaps even want you dead.

To ask for an "alternative plan that can win" is like asking how the Tampa Bay Rays can win the AL East this season--not in the present-day world of baseball, but in an alternative baseball universe, where the NY Yankees hitters are all on steroids and swing oversized bats, the pitchers beanball every Rays batter, the infielders sucker-punch every Rays runner, the umpires never call anything the Rays way, and the fans are too busy watching Miley Cyrus twerking on the stadium screen to notice what's happening on the field.

In this scenario, the Rays--and the right--have three options. Option #1 is to "go Galt" and walk off the field, which is what many on the right have done--Obama won in 2012, not because more people voted for him, but because fewer people voted for Romney. Option #2 is to keep trying to play the game by the rules, which is what the GOPe has done--McConnell, Boehner, et al keep trying to negotiate with Obama, Reid/Pelosi, et al, and the result is that the other side keeps winning, because the other side keeps breaking the rules, and the umpires (media) keep letting them.

Then there is Option #3. The alternative-universe-Rays don't walk off the field, because the game is too important--just as the right doesn't walk off the field, because the future is too important. But the Rays don't keep trying to get the alternative-universe-Yankees to play by the rules, because they understand that the Yankees only care about winning, regardless of the result to the game--just as the left only cares about winning, regardless of the left's destruction of the future.

So what do the Option-#3-Rays do? They perform the baseball equivalent of civil disobedience. Rays batters know they are going to be thrown beanballs, so they stand at the plate facing the pitcher, fending off the pitches, and occasionally hitting one. Rays runners know they are going to be sucker-punched, so they run around the fielders outside the lanes, or simply stop and block the sucker punch. Rays pitchers know the Yankee batters are bulked up and carry oversized bats, so the pitchers sit down on the mound and calmly say that they will begin throwing pitches when the batters get off the juice and swing regular bats.

In doing all of this, the Rays realize two things. First, the game will never get played--but the game isn't being played now, just a sham where the Yankees ensure that they "win." Second, the umpires will be constantly making calls against them--but the umpires are doing that already.

So what would they hope to gain by this? That over time, the fans in the stands, as their beer and hot dogs run out, will begin to look at the field rather than at Miley on the screen, and will begin to realize that the game has been gummed up by the Yankees, and the Rays are simply trying to make the game better.

And that is where Ted Cruz comes in. Ted Cruz can't "win" by his actions, any more than the Rays can "win" against the alt-universe-Yankees by refusing to be beaned or sucker-punched. But playing "by the rules," which is what McConnell, Boehner, McCain, et al keep trying to do, isn't getting us anywhere, because the opposition refuses to play by the rules, and doesn't want to negotiate but rather wants to destroy us. Only civil disobedience within the government is going to get the attention of the American people, because it is only the American people who can stop the left from breaking the political rules for the sake of destroying the right. That is why forcing the cloture vote last week was a shrewd political move, just as the faux filibuster last summer was, just as Rand Paul's Pollyanna-lawsuit against Obama is. Like Henry David Thoreau refusing to pay his taxes, like Rosa Parks refusing to sit at the back of the bus, Ted Cruz is refusing to pay for the left to make us sit at the back of the American bus. As of this moment, that is a very good start to the required American Reformation.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.