Posted on 11/30/2015 9:00:27 AM PST by Isara
I often come away from the conservative/Christian conferences I’ve attended around the country with the feeling that we’re trying to drive the car by hitting the gas and the brakes at the exact same time.
Although I have met many wonderful people at those events, and received no shortage of inspiration from the speeches I have heard, there is also a shadow that looms over everything. This shadow taunts us with visions of an army, whose soldiers run away or whose weapons jam right at the very moment in the fight when resolve and execution matter most.
And those shadows have names.
McCain. Romney. Boehner. McConnell. We may preach the antithesis of their failure theater at our gatherings, but they snuff out our song nonetheless with equivocation and platitudes. We may wave the flag for a new birth of freedom, but they break off the flag stick and stab us in the back with it.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
Are we are tired of it? Yes. But how tired are we, really? Many in the conservative punditry class seem like they would give anything for Donald Trump to stop upsetting the applecart so they could simply go back to peacefully writing their nagging columns about what’s wrong with Democrats. All the while never really coming close to drawing the enemy’s blood or actually risking their lives, fortunes or sacred honors. My colleague here at CR, Daniel Horowitz, not-so-graciously refers to this far too prevalent wing of the conservative movement as the “thumb suckers brigade.”
We insist that isn’t us. That we are the tried and true foot soldiers of American Exceptionalism. That if only we had our chance to seize the battlefield’s high ground, we’d take it and never look back.
Well, then, this Christmas is the time to ante up.
A field general with an organizational army of over 100,000 volunteers. A supply train of cash as rich as anyone could hope to amass. A consistent track record of putting principle over position. And the valor to be the first one to charge into battle, and take a bullet for the cause, is standing taller than we could have possibly hoped for when the 2016 GOP presidential field began auditioning last January.
His name is Ted Cruz, and while I have long been a supporter of his, I am also stunned by the simple arithmetic now undeniably calling his name forward.
The deepest presidential field in our lifetime, including the last two Iowa Caucus winners, figured to be a battle royal from the outset. So many respectable candidates would be vying for the same conservative base that even a narrow top three finish would be viewed as a huge success.
Yet with a dozen candidates still in the race, there are only two left who, barring disaster, seem to have a shot at securing 30 percent of the vote when the Iowa Caucus sorts things out roughly 60 days from now: Trump and Cruz.
If you are an actual conservative who has supported somebody other than Cruz up to this point, let me put in plainly: I couldn’t care less what your inner child thinks about that. In politics, it is the rare man who should be considered bigger than the movement. And if that does happen, such a man will have grown to that stature exactly because he is the most capable embodiment of what that movement stands for and hopes to achieve.
Everybody has had a chance at pulling the sword from the 2016 presidential stone. If Huckabee, Santorum, or Rubio (or several others) had built the campaign Cruz has, I would happily be on board. But they didn’t. Cruz did.
A population of die-hards who have attended more conservative book signings and rallies than they can count should no longer be starry-eyed about what is going on here. We can’t proceed as if we are little more than baseball card collectors or NASCAR fans obsessed with a single driver.
None of our gatherings have frankly been worth a warm pile of spit if we can’t coalesce now around a man who can grant American Exceptionalism the booster shot it desperately needs. So if you have a book shelf at home full of preachy tomes and autographed conservative memorabilia, but are still waffling about the path to victory in this race, you missed the whole point of our movement. If indeed a movement we really are, as opposed to an industry.
The 2008 and 2012 Iowa Caucus/GOP presidential primary involved a genuinely difficult decision for voters. That is not the case this time. Either gather around Cruz, on behalf of the values that won the American Revolution, or Trump’s “burn it down” French Revolution will likely win.
For this cycle is about revolution, which is why all the non-revolutionary candidates have been weighed, measured, and rejected by GOP primary voters. And this revolution will be televised, too. It’s just a matter of which revolution’s mission—American or French—will smile for the cameras.
As I wrote here earlier this week, Trump could be unstoppable if he wins Iowa. While his loyalists are people conservatives have often shared common cause with in recent months, and who are justifiably angry by the state of their country and their personal fortunes, let us not pretend we haven’t known all along how raw and unfocused the Trump road into the future will likely be.
And I say that as someone very appreciative of Trump undeniably destroying Jeb Bush and the GOP establishment’s stranglehold on the primary process. Our movement owes him a debt of gratitude for that. But let us also not pretend, on the other hand, that someone who held progressive positions on virtually every meaningful issue just a couple of years ago is really one of us.
If the conservative movement has been about anything other than glorified water cooler talk these many years since Ronald Reagan walked off into the sunset, there is a far better way for them to champion their cause. The pagan-progressive moment that is currently unravelling us has the most to fear from Cruz. If only we will acknowledge he has done everything we have asked for from a standard bearer. He has fought every fight we’ve ever asked someone to take on, and built a professional campaign the likes of which we’ve never seen from a conservative presidential contender.
He has earned our movement’s support. Now it is time for our movement to show it is one, after all, and put all our book sales and sold-out conferences where our mouths have been since the Reagan Revolution.
If not now, at this tipping moment for America, then when?
If another more successful man was running, you think I wouldn’t want to know as much as possible about them?
I support Trump. He’s pro American and unashamed of it.
I like his platform. I’ve voting for the guy.
However, all this talk IS TRUE that the only reason we have even heard of Donald Trump (let alone perceive him as a brilliant fix-all) is because "genius businessman" is Trump's brand image as marketed via the MSM for the past 10 years or so.
The reason we have never heard of businessmen considerably more brilliant and financially successful than Trump, better wheelers-and-dealers with YUGELY greater vision, is because they declined to pursue celebrity status through the MSM.
You’re voting for a moderate, then.
I read it in “Crippled America”.
If some of staunchest “conservatives” here would read a little more and spout off a little less we might actually have some constructive conversations. ;-)
I see the changes in emphasis and the answer it still the same.
Any of those other people were welcome to join the race. I may have liked one of them better.
Why are some of you so convinced a Trump supporter doesn’t think and is solely supporting him because of his notoriety?
It’s an angle that is frankly, silly. I have looked at Trump’s platform, have considered what was behind much of his past actions, and find myself fully in support of him.
Look at that family and try to convince me he’s some sort of monster. It’s just not selling Finny.
WOW $36 Million from a pro-amnesty rich donor! Hmmmmm...no wonder he wants path to legal status for illegals!
He’s running on the Reagan platform and more.
You didn’t know that?
Was Reagan a moderate? Yikes...
I thought you were the one who said he didn’t have a use for crystal balls.
What are you using to determine what will happen in the future then? Your posts are full of predictions with no basis in fact.
Even if they’d just listen to his campaign speeches, it would help.
These people are about as clueless as it gets, when it comes to his actual beliefs and platform.
Yep.
I am with you COMPLETELY, I love Cruz but in the end he will also be BOUGHT AND PAID FOR!!! The ONLY reason I am with Trump is he is funding his own campaign!!!!! NOTHING CHANGES without STOPPING the money flow to these bastards!!!!
Isara ?
Has anyone ever pondered this ?
Isn’t it ironic, odd, strange how life works, or how interhuman relations communications work ?
Ponder this, ever noticed how ?
The last person to know about something, or get news about something that is personally dear to them, or matters of great importance to them are the last persons to personally to either get the information, or news of matters of great importance.
And this happens to people when they were told over and over about to them but they have put up walls to block it out.
Reality doesn’t hit them until they are hit by a brick wall ( a figure of speech ) until only then does reality and the truth sets in.
It really doesn’t matter if the cat is let out of the bag, they won’t believe it anyway, so true to the old saying “ they are the last persons to know about it “.
We can only try. LOL.
The other richer Billionaires have the personality of a dud, such as Bill Gates, George Soros, Warren Buffet etc. They could not keep 10,000 people in 100 different rallies enthusiastically interested for over an hour each, without using a teleprompter. So the comparison is meaningless.
And you don't think that Trump is owned by a crony capitalist, himself? I'm sure everything Trump has done and will do is altruistic /s. He's never used donations to get himself an advantage? Will he use the Presidency to get an advantage? You buy the snake-oil, I'll save my money.
Right on time, as expected, Right on que, as expected, everything is going according to plan.
I guess the Trump folks will be the last to know, that they are being set up.
As the old saying and figure of speech goes, Brick walls have a way of waking people up to the truth and reality.
You’re right....I WAS trying to follow you, to attempt an intelligent discussion.
That was my mistake. Your last post only confirmed that you suffer from severe TDS and cannot have a rational conversation.
My apologies.
Nope! Trump is the only one who is unabashedly America First candidate. His does not NEED to give up his ultra luxurious and interesting life, to go through rigors of a presidential campaign. All others are professional politicians, receiving millions from rich donors.
You can favor the professional politician, I happen to favor a self-financed, Make America Great Again candidate.
And, don’t forget “the conversation” ;-)
Epic fail on your part.
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