Thanks for this. A positive spin on a troll post. Once this nastiness is over, I hope the forces will come together to make things right in this country again.
I suppose to some outsiders it seems odd to read about conservatives attacking Trump. They figure that Trump is about as far to the right as anyone in American politics.
So I think what’s really going on is a contest between two (and possibly three) brands of conservatism. Donald Trump represents more of an isolationist strain, Ted Cruz is almost a mainline neo-conservative and Kasich (or Romney) would represent a sort of business-friendly fiscal conservatism mixed with either social liberalism or an agreement to look the other way.
Cruz is not quite a full-on neo-con because of his social conservative views. But in some ways he is the logical successor to Bush-Cheney. Trump is more isolationist than any major Republican figure in the past seventy years. However, he balances that with promises to make America great again so that his isolationism is muted by those calls.
I think when you get past the personality stuff that is not all that significant, the real choice here is between a shift towards concern for the homeland and its failing economy and infrastructure, and concern for America’s leading position in the world in military and geopolitical terms. It would be hard to have it both ways — there is probably not enough tax revenue available even to Bernie Sanders to make America both a fully engaged military superpower and a nation busy with rebuilding roads and bridges (plus all the other things Sanders would do with tax money that neither of these candidates would propose).
Personally, I think a blend is the best solution, not quite as isolationist as Trump’s earlier musings about NATO or his remarks about neutrality on Israel-Palestine, but certainly more committed to domestic recovery and stronger trade deals (and action on the illegal immigration issue) than we’ve heard yet from Cruz. I think a Trump-Cruz ticket would solve a lot of problems. There would be no more talk of a brokered convention. It would be the strongest available Republican ticket. I hope it occurs to Cruz tomorrow in the afterglow of whatever happens today.
The nation needs a change in government. That is the only really important thing now.