Sadly.
This is why it’s hard to untangle this mess.
If moderate candidates like Bush and Rubio embrace radical foreign policies, are they truly moderate?
From the Washington Post
Later, Mitchell probed as to whether Dole could or would vote for Trump next November. Dole said he would because he can’t bring himself to vote for Hillary Clinton. Then she asked about Cruz, and Dole joked, “I might oversleep that day,” before adding: " 'Cause he used to make these speeches. ‘Remember President Dole, do you remember President McCain.’ The inference was that we were all a bunch of liberals, and only he is a true conservative. And he uses the word ‘conservative’ more than he ever uses the word ‘Republican.’ So, it would be difficult."
Link
Cruz has spent his entire time in office running against the Republican Party, but unlike other candidates he made it personal.
There are drawbacks to that approach.
From the Washington Post
Later, Mitchell probed as to whether Dole could or would vote for Trump next November. Dole said he would because he can’t bring himself to vote for Hillary Clinton. Then she asked about Cruz, and Dole joked, “I might oversleep that day,” before adding: " 'Cause he used to make these speeches. ‘Remember President Dole, do you remember President McCain.’ The inference was that we were all a bunch of liberals, and only he is a true conservative. And he uses the word ‘conservative’ more than he ever uses the word ‘Republican.’ So, it would be difficult."
Link
Cruz has spent his entire time in office running against the Republican Party.
There are drawbacks to this strategy.
I haven’t followed this much, but it seems like Trump and Cruz are two sides of the “outsider” coin.
It’s clear that Republicans hate Congress. Trump is a businessman but not always very conservative. Cruz is a Tea Party firebrand but may still be too much of an insider for some people. Plus he’s unappealing I guess. I’ve never seen him.
The establishment hates the Tea Party and seems to think they can influence Trump since he is somewhat of an open book and a deal maker.
Cruz’s inability to work with Congress ought to be a selling point, since everyone agrees Congress is godawful. The weird thing is that a lot of his foreign policy lines up with neoconservatism anyway.
However you untangle that, it’s clear the establishment candidates (Jeb, Rubio, etc.) have almost no traction.
They had a very poor grasp on what people actually wanted.
David French wrote a piece in the National Review that noted that Republican primary voters weren’t as conservative as the leadership expected. Apparently the voters didn’t two hoots about tax policy, or what the club for growth was pushing.
This shouldn’t have surprised them, but it did.
King Hussein (Jordan) liked to dress up in disguise and walk the streets of Amman (alone) so he could talk with his people. It was his way of getting a read on public sentiments and understanding what was actually going on, versus what his staff was telling him.
Enidigm
4566
On a broader level you might argue it reflects a sense that conservativism has “lost” the culture war and is now at best a rearguard holding action. Progressive values and achievements march ever onward, maybe in fits and spurts, maybe a setback here or there, but the arrow clearly points in one direction only. What they want IMO - and this might be unconscious or not completely formed as an idea they hold coherently - is some kind of conservative victory, somewhere, anywhere. Let’s pray to the flag in school, close the borders, nuke the commies, kick out the foreign companies; just something, anything, to reverse the steady march of change which progressives so whole heartedly embrace. Progressives want the country in 50 years to be unrecognizable to their parents. Perhaps not surprisingly there is pushback to this, unfocused, angry, and feckless as it is.
Scuzz
4567
You see, I think much of Trump’s craziness would be muzzled by the Constitution, the democrats and by the GOP themselves. I also see him as someone much more interested in business. The business of business. Huckabee and Santorum would rule try to rule from the bible, something that I think is part of the past. They would find biblical reasons to do or not do things. Imagine the social consequences.
As for Trump starting wars, the congress still has to authorize the expenditure of funds.
I’d be wary about this kind of utopian thinking. History isn’t a linear process leading us to a better tomorrow.
Scuzz
4569
and that has to be a good thing?
Enidigm
4570
I’m not saying it’s good or bad or even what I think. I’m describing how the world must look to all those conservatives willing to burn it all down for Cruz or Trump. They’re itching, agitating, squirming for something to actually really happen. Not just “talk conservative”. Even if that ‘thing’ is destructive or counterproductive. It’s actually remarkable how little actually does happen compared to say 1865-1895, which were like three or four enormous sea changes one after the other. (Politically that is).
The Harris County grand jury decided not to indict Planned Parenthood based on the anti-abortion fetal tissue videos that have been in the news lately. Instead, they’ve indicted the anti-abortion videographers.
David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt were both indicted for tampering with a governmental record. An additional indictment for prohibition of the purchase and sale of human organs was issued for Daleiden, according to a release from the Harris County District Attorneys Office.
[Nelson_HaHa]
RichVR
4574
Every now and then, the clouds part, and a single golden beam of sanity breaks through. And then is gone. As if it never existed.
The reason Trump scares me is I think he has almost no regard for the constitution. It just another set of stupid rules that he can break, ignore or bribe his way around.
I think very few of the Presidential candidates would pay much attention to Congress. The imperial Presidency goes back to FDR, and most of the occupants since his time of expanded the powers of the Presidency, until right after Nixon Congress actually adopted some measure to reign it in. Presidents finding ways of getting around Congressional spending constraints is a permanent fixture of American government, that has gotten worse over time.
What Presidents do pay attention to is the Supreme Court. So President Hillary Clinton or President Ted Cruz would use executive orders to do whatever the hell they want, but if SCOTUS what you are doing is unconstitutional they would stop because as lawyers they respect the institution. If Trump signed an executive order banning Muslim from entering the country and SCOTUS said that’s unconstitutional, I think he would ignore it.
I don’t think he understands constitutional limitations that bind the president. He’ll try and game the system, of course, but the president is not an autocrat.
I think he will find that frustrating.
Border agents would ignore his blatantly illegal directive.
And then Trump would address these non-complaint agents, and say to them:
You’re fired.
Scuzz
4578
So his real plan is to open the borders…tricky bastard.
Timex
4579
The fact that the president’s power is limited isn’t enough for me to not fear trunp being elected, because what power he does hold is immense.
He controls the military, and can deploy them without any approval at all for limited periods of time.
So fuck all that noise. I’m not gonna stand by and be like the Germans in the 30s. He’s saying crazy ass shit that is horrific. That means we shouldn’t elect him.
What’s interesting to me over the last few days is watching the Left that supports Sanders acting more and more like the liberal version of Tea Party assholes as they attack ideologically friendly wonks who tend to crunch numbers on policy proposals. Krugman, Chait, Klein, etc., have apparently incurred the wrath of the FeeltheBern (f’n hate that hashtag) mob because they’re crunching numbers on his proposals and not liking what they see.
Yeah, put me in the camp that thinks Trump’s first act would be to throw out The Constitution. He would do whatever the fuck he wants and use his executive power to bully anyone who tried to oppose him. I expect he would be impeached within a year and then things would get really interesting because if he decided he was tired of playing President he would use this as an excuse to take his ball and go home but if he was enjoying the power he would do whatever it takes to stay in office, impeachment be damned.
Cruz could never get elected but, theoretically, if he did, he would attempt to usher in a Tea Party nightmare era and might or might not be successful turning the country into Flint Michigan depending on how much Congress was willing to play ball. But Trump? Trump would likely destroy America as we know it.
Fortunately, there’s no way either one of them could get elected. I know that we under estimate Trump at our own risk but I, for one, have never doubted his ability to win the nomination because that’s how broken the Republican Party has become. But it’s also why they can’t win the Presidency unless they right the ship and nominate someone sane like Rubio or Kasich. Clinton terrifies me because she is so unlikeable that she would make it close against Cruz or Trump (and would lose outright to Rubio or Kasich) but there is no way the majority of America would vote in either one. You’d see turnout like you’d never seen before to block either one of them. Every independent and many Republican would vote Democrat to keep either one out.
