Posted on 03/09/2016 7:18:57 PM PST by crusher
Dear Trump Supporters
Although I am not particularly enamored with Donald Trump (the ideas Cruz espouses are closer to my own), I absolutely understand and appreciate the dynamic behind Trump's meteoric rise and probable victories in the GOP nomination and the November election. I have posted before on FR about the importance of eradicating the Republican Party, so perhaps Trump is the vehicle for that necessary Schumpeterian creative destruction.
What does fascinate me is the hostility towards Cruz from ostensibly conservative folks who happen to be supporting Trump. I do not really care about the specifics of the animus but note that it approaches a quality that genuinely befuddles me. Having been at FR since the Xlintoon regime I am pretty confident that the hostility heaped on Hellary and Bubba pales in comparison to that currently aimed at Cruz. (I went back and read some random threads from back in the day.)
So here is my genuine question for Trump supporters: what was your attitude towards Cruz a year ago, before the entry of Trump into the race? I recall Cruz being lionized on FR and throughout the conservatosphere for being one of the two or three Senators willing to stand in the way of the Uniparty agenda.
Before Trump I supported Cruz.
I now support Trump.
I will support Cruz on a Trump/Cruz ticket.
I haven’t really participated too much in this, but I’ll take the bait as one Trump supporter who hates Cruz with the white hot passion of a thousand burning suns. I do understand why a lot of Cruz supporters look askance at Trump as a loud-mouthed, barely-reformed liberal, New Yorker with maybe even a bit of an authoritarian streak. I happen to think he’s a patriot, and the rest doesn’t really matter. He’ll fight for America, and Americans. The rest not so much.
But back to Cruz, it’s hard to know where to start. An obvious place is that he’s not eligible, and his response to it has been disingenuous at best, insulting at worst. He knows it’s not “settled law”, and for him to go around as some sort of holier-than-thou Constitutional originalist and then dismiss Article V concerns with all of the snark of a Daily Kos blogger sneering at the questions that were raised about Obama, well, that boils my blood.
We can go next to his faux populism. The man is literally IN BED with Goldman Sachs, and has spent his entire life enjoying the life as a member of the East Coast elite. Princeton, Harvard, Bush Administration. Sure he gets up and grandstands about whatever to no effect whatsoever, but when the chips are down, he’s voting for amnesty, for TPP, for Corker, etc. He’s carrying Goldman Sachs water.
He called McConnell a liar on the Senate floor which didn’t change my opinion about McConnell (of course he’s a lying sack of sh*t what did you think?) but it made me change my opinion about Cruz in that he’s a dummy for believing McConnell’s lies.
Obviously he’s a practitioner of the dirtiest of campaign tactics (all by the way funded by a who’s who of the worst of the lobbyists and other rent-seekers in Washington, not to mention from fundraisers with gay New Yorkers, and by the way the “New York values” thing was a cheap, insulting and incredibly short-sighted way to win Iowa).
Then we have his personal foibles. He looks like Grandpa Munster and he talks like a combination of a televangelist and a sleazy trial lawyer. He makes enemies out of everyone who has anything to do with him, NOBODY LIKES HIM. Not his fellow Senators, not those who are running with him (look how hot Carson was at him by the end of it), nobody.
You can get into the weird association with “dominionist” Christianity if you’d like, his father the pastor of a one-person congregation. He seems to in touch with some dark spiritual forces, and it’s reflected in his campaign strategies.
There’s also the obvious fact that he has zero chance in the general election, really in the primary either (at this point, it’s obvious that he’s part of the brokered convention strategy). He says all the right things to appeal to the far-right of the Republican Party, and that’s won him a few caucuses in small states and his home state, but everyone knows that’s not going to play well anywhere else. But he doesn’t care, he’s willing to take the Party down to defeat so long as it’s him doing it.
But other than that, yeah he’s a great guy!
Wow, you’ve been reading my mind and can articulate my thoughts much better than I can. Thanks.
I see these kind of leading questions a lot in my counter cult ministry work. For example, “Honest question..Why are you anti-Mormons so angry and bitter?”. They never consider we aren’t. They are told we are and so they assume it. Same here.
What about now?
Loved him, supported him enthusiastically, sent him multiple donations.
Then I watched him, studied him, learned about him.
Now he repulses me as much as Obama.
lol like the tagline. How you been brother?
I used to end posts with ‘Cruz or lose!’ up until a month or so ago.
Then I got to know him. He’s creepy.
Hey, you asked.
Yep. That's exactly where I am.
Honest question.
Here’s an honest answer from someone (me) who would describe himself as liking Ted, but preferring Trump.
This is largely a similar comment to one I made ano another thread earlier...
I’m having trouble getting past the Cruz speeches where he rails against the Washington cartel, a position that resonated with me, and the reality I see when I look through donor reports. My disillusionment on this point started sometime in the fall-winter when the whole Club for Growth kerfufel started. I’ve never been a huge fan of CfG, so I asked the question, if they are against Trump, who are they for? I looked into the candidates and PACs who were beneficiaries of their largess.
Their attitude towards Trump concerned as much of my problem with politics is the self appointed king makers looking down their noses every four years and telling the unwashed masses for whom we may vote. This Washington Cartel, in my mind, had spoken, loudly. It is their way, or the highway. It is their sandbox, and they set the rules for the flames.
The reality I find is this - he, Ted, is funded by G/S, the Chertoff group, and the Club for Growth, among others. Adding Neil Bush to the mix this week left me flabbergasted.
If those folks are all on team Ted, I honestly can’t tell who it is that he’s actually standing against...
It’s not vitriol from me, I hope not anyway, so much as it is amazement at the Ted I see lately, the Ted I find in the financial reports, is not the Ted I thought I was getting when he announced. I thought Ted was with us in the right against the K St moneychangers, but more and more it feels like he’s just hosting a slightly different table, perhaps over in the corner somewhere, in the same hall of horrors.
No problem. I’’ve lost it a time or two myself.
I can’t answer the question regarding what Trump said since I don’t know the tone and context. But, he is not running as “the face of the God we serve” or being anointed at campaign rallies. He is running as the flawed man he is, not a saint.
As a Trump supporter, I prefer my cyanide with a cherry kool aid chaser as opposed to grape or strawberry. I don’t know what others may think but the cherry has a smoother finish.
Apologies for all the typos.
Weez Twump suppoyahs wills givz yuzs an offa ya can’t refooz
Thanks, pastor. :)
“I used to end posts with ‘Cruz or lose!’ up until a month or so ago.”
I’m always suspect when I see claims like this. I think you need to go back quite a bit earlier than a month or two ago.
Beck is downright creepy, and the poop he has been spouting has gotten downright bizarre. Knife control anyone?
Amen.
Sen Cruz first came to my attention through Limbaugh. I greatly admired his stand on the floor, and when he called Mconnell a liar, I said to myself, “ A fighter.” As the campaign got under way, I thought maybe a Trump CRuz ticket would be a winning combination. Then came the smarmy attacks, not by Trump but by Cruz in Iowa. The attacks has turned to lies, no attempts to disavow Beck after the comment to kill Trump etc., The last debate, I saw a smug asshole tag team the front runner. Frankly he lost all my respect during that debate. Moreover, There is something wrong with ANY presidential candidate who professes to be upright and a stalwart for freedom and liberty that will campaign with someone who on air, nationwide, fantasies about murdering the competition with a knife.
I will take Donald Trumps endorsers any day, especially the Vets For Trump. These are real people, salt of our earth, those who sacrificed limbs and survive with disfigurement that would drive most to contemplate suicide. You want Cruz, well he comes with Beck. But that’s okay cause according to Beck, cruise will lead you all through the rapture.
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