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?
So typical of Trump supporters going into personal insults....
Not comparing Trump to Hitler as to their souls, or heart convictions, or personalities.
Just bringing out the similarities of both being populist.
Of course ? Your response was purely emotional without considering what I was trying to say in the first place.
Hey, get a clue, I don’t care actually about the personal insults, it just makes you guys look really bad.
I tried to explain to you what I meant by “ populist “ and of course as a Trump supporter with pure emotions you twisted to mean something else.
Why I don’t care ?
I have health issues and got one foot in the grave already so I don’t know when my time is up, unless the good Lord heals me, I have nothing to lose at this point.
That’s dirty, AC. If you wanted to compare Trump to other populists, there are other choices besides Hitler. And before you do your trigger-finger response of accusing me of being a Trump-and-only-Trump supporter, do your homework and look at my posting history.
You’re doing Cruz no favors with your tactic.
There is no excuse for trying to link Trump to Hitler.
You’re a sad pathetic malcontent.
Hitler!
So typical of Trump supporters , resort to personal insults I see.
Of course the Trump supporters haven’t changed.
They cry about Cruz supporters trolling Trump threads and cry foul, but yet have free reign to jump on any Ted Cruz threads and disrupt the threads.... There is a word for that, hypocrisy.
Personalizing and polarizing again?
You sound like you have a hardened heart.
I wish you peace.
Hitler?
You win the Godwin’s Law Award for tonight.
I am not going to sit here and do a whole research project on the world history of populist to satisfy the Trump supporters, Hitler was one of many examples.
Ohh, I get it, you solely came on here, on this thread to defend Trump for what I was trying to define as “ populist “..
OK, let’s check out your posting history on this thread to confirm if that is indeed in fact true..
No, not true, you were on here before I posted my post, its there, check it out.
I am glad that without knowing me at all you feel ready to analyze my experience and why I know & what I know. I never heard of Trump before he started this election cycle except as someone who owned some hotels.
I don’t watch TV or read MSM so I never was exposed to any “marketing”. I have researched Trump and his political & social positions over time and have watched and listened during this election cycle. If you had bothered to do the same you would realize why your comments are so off base.
I am sorry for you because you have allowed your emotions and preconceptions to overwhelm your intellect.
Honey, the title of this thread is Trump or Cruz...
Nice of you to admit your laziness, unpreparedness and club-footedness. Cruz would never stoop so low and he’d use better more classy tactics. Cruz deserves better representation than what you’re offering.
I was comparing both of their “ populism “
However, this is the only example you chose to include in your comments.
Now you’re trying to wiggle out of it.
NO SALE!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3366371/posts?page=223#223
The article is from Steve Deace, the main theme of the article is about Ted Cruz, not Trump.
So what now ?
Are you finished ?
I can post on any thread on this forum.
GOT IT?
Where in the Sam Hell do you get your logic from?
When I addressed you here, it was reasonable to do so.
I did in fact come to this thread solely to address your idiotic statement. Note that I only addressed one other person in the same time frame, and he had made a stupid comment as well.
That’s the beauty of this forum. We can come to threads where someone is making an ass out of themselves, and help them do it right.
You have graciously agreed to do just that.
Thank you.
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