Constitutional Scripturalism (Cruz and Beck)

Ted Cruz setting himself on fire at the GOP convention is a good example of how things are not always what they seem. The Wuss Right cheered because they hoped it would hurt Trump. They never cared for Cruz, which is why they refused to back him until the last days of the primary. Even those who were willing to back Cruz early on were muted in their enthusiasm. Once there was nothing to lose and he was throwing one last rock at Trump, they could let loose with full-throated cheers for Lion Ted.

The Wuss Right’s reticence with regards to Cruz is not all wrong. Cruz is a weasel, who can’t be trusted. He proved that the other night. He’s also revealed himself to be a fanatic, fully capable of stepping on a rake that he laid in front of his own path. Cruz seems to believe the things Glenn Beck says about him. He imagines himself as the throne half of the team, while Beck imagines himself representing the altar side of their thing. Their thing is a strange movement that blends evangelical Christianity, Mormonism and evangelical Constitutionalism.

Conservatives tend to define themselves as people who are faithful to the spirit of the law, as well as the letter. When it comes to the Constitution, the Right typically takes a narrow view. If it is not explicitly in the document, then it is assumed to not be in the document. This is in line with the traditional negative liberty that is the bedrock of the American system of governance. The state only has powers specifically granted to it. Put another way, the state must get permission from the citizens to act.

Listen to a Ted Cruz speech and he talks about the Constitution in the same way preachers talk about Scripture. You either read the document as the literal word of God or you are a sinner. An America that is not organized around the literal reading of the original document is failing in its duty to God. Similarly, liberty is a stand-in for salvation. One is either in a state of liberty or outside the light of the Founders. When a guy like Ted Cruz talks of religious liberty, it clearly means more than just being left to worship as you please. It’s liberty as a religion.

The irony of this evangelical constitutionalism is that it was Evangelicals who ushered in the whole “living constitution” stuff. The Christian reformers of the 19th century badgered the courts to accept a more expansive role in law making. This always meant chipping away at property rights in order to eradicate immorality from national life. The Abolitionist Movement was, after all, an attack on property rights. Slaves were property and freeing slaves is, legally speaking, no different than “freeing” someone’s car or their cash.

Treating the founding documents as holy texts and the Founders as messengers of God seems like a natural evolution of Evangelical politics. In the 70’s and 80’s, Christian conservatives got involved in politics and ended up as a reliable Republican constituency. This traditional approach to politics got them nothing but disappointment as the liberals steamrolled conservatives in Washington on social issues. Strategy shifted to backing coreligionists, thinking that would result in more reliable politicians. Eight years of George Bush disabused most Christians of that belief.

Holding up a holy text as something more than words on a page is to expected. Religions only work when the rules are set forth by an authority higher than man. Otherwise, it’s just coercion. Deifying the Constitution the way we see with guys like Cruz and Beck, inevitably deifies the men who wrote it. It also assumes a transcendence that the writers never imagined. The men who wrote the Constitution fully understood that it was a grab-bag of compromises that were necessary in order to organize thirteen nations into a single country.

Just as important, the men who founded the country relied upon the work of others to form their opinions and debate how to best organize the newly independent country. Jefferson, for example, borrowed heavily from The Declaration of Rights with which Parliament asserted its rights against the King in the Glorious Revolution. Imbuing the Constitution with sacred authority inevitably turns the writers into something they were not and strips them of their humanity. The Founders were just men, but they were still men.

That’s what makes the Cruz speech and his refusal to back Trump interesting. The Wuss Right, filled with hatred for the rise of Trump and his nationalist backers, cheered Cruz as the heir to Reagan. The Cruz people, however, are not looking for Reagan. They tried that and got nowhere. They saw the Cruz speech and saw their savior, a man in the line of the Founders, sent by God to bring his people back into the light of the Constitution. It’s why his followers are sure God will punish America for rejecting their man.

Ted Cruz says he will run in 2020 no matter what happens in 2016. It remains to be seen whether this movement he is leading has legs. These things often fizzle out. With high profile people like Glenn Beck and Erick Erickson signing on and preaching from their Internet pulpits every day, it’s probably going to be with us for a while. Ted Cruz is the leader of the political version of the Westboro Baptist Church now. The founding documents are holy scripture and the leaders are men of God, sent by God.

Very interesting article. I too have noticed the tendency to deify the founders, making America essentially the "chosen" nation.

However, let's be honest here. All traditionally chrstian nations suffer from this problem of considering themselves the "new Israel," their homelands the "holy land," and their founders as sent directly from Heaven. The attitude attributed to Cruz and Beck here is essentially no different from the chrstian nationalism of the Armenians, Ethiopians, Greeks, Spanish, etc.

Ted Cruz is the leader of the political version of the Westboro Baptist Church now.

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Cruz never was going to be and never will be President ... unfortunately, his ego & narcissism blinds him to that reality, eerily similar to Obama’s detachment from reality for the same reason(s).

There was last-minute support for Lyn’ Ted?! Where?! I sure missed it. Evangelicals and the rest, Catholics like me, and others rejected him early on and never looked back. He’s so tainted now he won’t win reelection to the senate should he pursue it. I know I’ll support whoever runs against him, even if that means supporting a Democrat. I find Lyn’ Ted so objectionable that I won’t car who that person is. I put Ryan, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and McConnell in the same category. But Lyn’ Ted stands alone in my ire. I don’t like being lied to, being preached to. Lyn’ Ted is notable because he lied and lied and lied. He’s delusional. He also dropped out the day after it was noted that his dad was an associate of Lee Harvey Oswald. Not that he had ties to the assassination, but that he was pictured with him handling out political literature. What was that relationship? Fair game since his dad campaigned for him. But Lyn’ Ted, he lied about his citizenship to gain his senate seat. He lied about financing his campaign. He lied about losing his family health insurance. He lied and lied and then lied some more. He early recognized that he was not a Natural Born Citizen, wrapped himself in the US Constitution, then ignored it to pursue his quest for office. What a delusional lie. And his associations with Levin and Beck. Incredible. Beck even swore him in! No, good riddance to Lyn’ Ted and anyone that insists on continuing to support him.

That’s a very good point. Historically most nations tend to subscribe to a heavy dose of divinely ordained exceptionalism, especially when they are “riding the wave,” being at or near the apex of their power in the world.

True. And the worst thing about it is the degrading of the One Universal G-d into a local ethnic totem--which is a virus attacking Monotheism at its heart.

Deifying the Constitution the way we see with guys like Cruz and Beck, inevitably deifies the men who wrote it. It also assumes a transcendence that the writers never imagined. The men who wrote the Constitution fully understood that it was a grab-bag of compromises that were necessary in order to organize thirteen nations into a single country.

I'm not sure what the author's point was. He seems to feel that people who see the Constitution as literal and inviolable are idolaters. But the alternative would be the "living Constitution" approach, which makes the document worthless. I get that Cruz and Beck are wankers, but I don't get the author's apparent disdain for the respect for the document that most conservatives have.

Also, Dominionism does NOT equal Evangelicalism.

Somewhat as an aside, I take issue with the following:

‘Even those who were willing to back Cruz early on were muted in their enthusiasm.’

There may be some pundits that fit that description, but not the rank and file. As an early Trump supporter, I was verbally lambasted for many months on end by Cruz supporters. They may have lacked a thing or two, but enthusiasm wasn’t one of them.

This article has it wrong. I am a strict construction constitutionalist, in the mold of Scalia, and yet opposed Cruz. While Cruz on paper was a good candidate, I knew the country would not take to him and his style, and we needed a good leader who would move us in the right direction before we can fix what the courts have done to the Consitution. First thing needed to stop the bleeding is control of the border. That limits the voting and demographic change and allows Americans some breathing room to begin to take back the country. Trump promised that. Cruz was half-hearted.

Later, it became clear that Cruz is a douche.

We need generations of work in the schools and communities before Americans are proud of their founding, their constitution, their history. Until then, candidates who are pure and who can't appeal to the poorly educated low information types will have no chance.

The Abolitionist Movement was, after all, an attack on property rights. Slaves were property and freeing slaves is, legally speaking, no different than “freeing” someone’s car or their cash

For the most part i agree with him but he’s fundamentally wrong in what he stated above... the law in the Constitution clearly defined slavery is not in the traditional property rights scopes by restricting it from the get-go

Lincoln made a very succinct point about that pointing out things like the Northwest ordinances which banned slavery in those areas even before The Constitution or the Constitution of self setting a time limit Banning importation of slaves.

As Lincoln stated if slavery was property and business like any other property and business and what the heck is the Constitution sticking its nose into it in the first place trying to restrict and eliminate a clearly profitable business of importation.. the fact that it was very clearly singled out for restriction from the beginning acknowledged it was not just property as usual

There is no force of law behind anything that is done in the name of the Government created by the Constitution, that is not authorized by the Constitution. That is the basic reality. But for the Constitution, there is no Federal Government. We are back under the Articles of Confederation.

That said, it is not correct to think that Cruz is more truly Conservative than Donald Trump. He is not. I am not just referring to his contradictory behavior, when he found himself losing in the Primaries. I am referring to the fact that Donald Trump is every bit as naturally Conservative as Cruz has claimed; but also to the fact that Donald Trump is better able to prioritize the most essential Conservative issues--given the complex of factors in America today.

Trump's focus is the essential Conservative focus in 2016.

See Metaphor For American Conservatism.

Or consider: Trump: The Issue.

I think the focus should be on the tremendous opportunity that Donald Trump offers; rather than continuing to harp on the inadequacies of those whom he has already vanquished. The Clinton campaign will attack from a quite different direction than that of the ego misled targets of this thread.

The Clinton campaign will epitomize the anti-strict constructionist argument; the paranoid use of strawmen; the fear of every sort of disaster, that imaginative fantasy driven Leftists can postulate. Refuting such must be our focus now.

Thinking out of the box, I'm not really sure what Cruz is, but I tend to think of him as being a weapon that was sent against US.

Notice how the Cruz-weapon is very similar to the obama version, but that it's target package is instead tailor-made for the Christian conservative, Constitutionally minded GOP party base.

Cruz's words, much like an electronic suppression of defenses prior to an airstrike, are tuned to resonate with his chosen audience resulting in their instant infatuation, which overwhelmed their reason and good sense, thus blinding them to his intentions, faults and fatal errors.

And, like with the obama, the Cruz weapon was very effective in those first strikes, resulting in many casualties, including the walking wounded who've never recovered.

Yep, other than the intended target, the Cruz is essentially the same as the obama version right down to the sealed records and the natural born ineligibility.

As it is, I am grateful for Trump. Thanks in large part to him, the Cruz weapon was unsuccessful.

I just wonder who launched that thing at US.

Coming right after the obama, I don't know how we'd have survived a direct hit, not while we're so damaged and vulnerable.

We voted Cruz in our early primary, I’m ASHAMED to say. However, we will walk barefoot over hard gravel to the polls on election day, to cast our vote for:

DONALD J. TRUMP for PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
& MIKE PENCE for VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

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