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 what now ?
Are you finished ? Or have more to say ?
Those quiet acts of kindness like transporting a very sick Israeli child, with whom he had no prior connection with, to NYC with his jet for treatment in a NY hospital, are one of the things that give the measure of this man.
Here’s a link to the thread the rest of us are participating on.
See if you can struggle real hard and figure out the title of the thread.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3366371/posts?q=1&;page=251
Here’s a link to the thread the rest of us are participating on.
See if you can struggle real hard and figure out the title of the thread.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3366371/posts?q=1&;page=251
Reagan > Trump > Hitler...
Interesting progression on your part.
None of your damned business.
OK then, we are finished talking then, agreed ?
That too is none of your damned business.
As a Christian, who happens to be serving in the Army for over 28 years, I see God using Trump for His purpose. Therefore, who am I to question what God is doing through Trump. I don’t like everything Trump does and says, but my spiritual eyes tell me that God is using him.
I agree.
Perhaps it’s an old story everyone has heard of but in case someone else hasn’t, here goes...
A man was stranded on an island. Being a devout Christian he prayed for Jesus to come and rescue him.
A ship when by, sent over a dingy. He was asked if he needed help and he answered no. I have faith Jesus is going to rescue me.
A helicopter landed. Again he was asked if he needed help. Again he answered no. I have faith Jesus is going to rescue me.
Finally a submarine surfaced and sent over another dingy. He was asked if he needed help and still again he answered no. I have faith Jesus is going to rescue me.
The man wound up dying on the island. He wound up in heaven. There he asked Jesus why He didn’t come rescue him.
Jesus replied, “I sent you a ship, a helicopter, and a submarine. You turned down my ombudsman each time.”
One of the problems I’ve seen exhibited this year on the forum is this.
Have you ever wanted to find a small saw in your garage to prune a few branches off a small tree in your yard. You’re so concentrated on finding that small saw, that you look right past the pruning sheers that would have been the perfect thing to use.
As I see it, these are the FReeper dilemas this year.
Sometimes we can’t see the forest for the trees.
Amen
Trump couldn't carry Reagan's Jockstrap. And you couldn't sniff it. Although you could carry and sniff Trumps.
So was Sarah Palin. Was she like Hitler?
Aww, another Cruz third grader...
Trump’s platform is Reagan’s platform junior.
They were/are both populists selling the same things.
Once again, after six months, you still didn’t know it.
Either you didn’t know jack - about Reagan, or you don’t know jack - about Trump.
Thank you. I appreciate it.
Trump did spend something like six years at a military academy, so he certainly did a lot more marching, shooting and the like than many Americans.
Reagan was great for the military despite having served stateside in military PR.
If you didn’t see debate ganging up on Trump with their questions not only for him, but for the the others, then you shouldn’t be lecturing anyone-me or other Freepers—on eyes squeezed shut, missing the handwriting on the wall.
Trump's greatest skill is inspiring such loyalty in his supporters as to rationalize away concerns that merit serious appraisal, and would for these same intelligent people -- the two of you -- if it was anyone but Trump.
Both of your posts are evidence of this skill in Trump. Neither of your posts recommends anything about Trump except his skill in inspiring great heights of loyalty in you.
Blah, blah, blah. Did you notice anything about Candy Crowley’s moderation of the Obama/Romney debate?
No reason to deny the truth.
Trump is a successful human being who loves his country, and one who will run circles around the ignorant. That’s more than I can say for some FR.
Nice try though. Go Trump!
Sooooooo ? Trump wants to continue the NSA abuses ?
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