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.
Thank you for your counsel, but as I have been avoiding FR increasingly in recent weeks I missed those posts.
I like a lot of what cruz says but I get a slimy lawyer, slimy politician vi e from him sometime. I don’t trust him really. It might be a woman thing. Boost men I know like him most women do not. I would like if trump would select him for vp. I think he’s smart and could keep trump on track constitutionally and legally. Sometimes cruz is a little funny. Sorry. I should like cruz from his resume and views but I just do t feel it and do t think he can get crossovers or independents.
And exactly what point would that be. Calling people who disagree with St. Ted Kool Aid drinkers proves your point. Don’t think so.
Way to go Albion, you’re just in time! I’m outa here and off to the two intoxicating threads you’ve provided. Thank you.
FOLLOWERS: ...Look! Ah! Oh! Oh!
ARTHUR: He has given us a sign!
FOLLOWER: Oh!
SHOE FOLLOWER: He has given us... His shoe!
ARTHUR: The shoe is the sign. Let us follow His example.
SPIKE: What?
ARTHUR: Let us, like Him, hold up one shoe and let the other be upon our foot, for this is His sign, that all who follow Him shall do likewise.
Most of it is just noise.
When Cruz announced I shot money at him so fast. I was so happy. I only “knew” Cruz on paper and he sounded perfect: smart, maybe genius; a good speaker who could explain conservative politics to all Americans and show that constitutional conservatism would help even libs live their most free; a religious, genuine, honest man who wasn’t afraid of taking on the media.
I was stunned at how unpleasant he actually is, and how much he lied on camera, especially the easily provable lies. They dirty tricks in campaigning would not have been done by a truly decent man. I was happy he won Iowa -—— until his over the top victory speech. It is NOT TRUE that Gd chooses one candidate to win a state caucus because He doesn’t like the other candidates. That appalled me. Then for 20 minutes he praised his own “victory” over and over, with zero common sense perspective that it was a small win and there was much work ahead.
I just realized over time thst he was clearly actually not the good person I believed him to be. He is dishonest, unlikable, and smarmy.
I was a Cruz supporter. Then he back stabbed Carson, dubbed a video to hurt Rubio, and lied three times about Trump in a debate. Two of those
Lies were refuted the next day.
Then I just began seeing Cruz as staged and fake.
So I began looking at Trump. The more I looked, the more I liked.
Now I am sold.
I think here's what's going on.
Consider that there are 500 people, and that probably 400 supported Cruz as the best a while ago. But as Trump began to change the terms of the entire debate, 350 saw Trump as more effective, and conservative ENOUGH, given that the country hangs in the balance.
Now here's the crux: 25 a-holes on each side posting asinine insults over and over and over, and each side only really feels the insults directed at them as insults. It's an illusion - but you don't viscerally connect when, if you're for Cruz, a Cruz supporter insults a Trump supporter, and the other way around, so you don't register it emotionally, therefore your internal who's-insulting-whom-how-much counter is totally biased against the other side, whoever the other side is.
In the meantime, about 400 or so of that original 500 aren't posting or saying anything you'd register, because they are not hot heads. So a relative few people on each side are going at each other's throats, and you're not noticing when it's a Cruz supporter hurling insults.
So you Cruz supporters have to realize this: That you are being wrongly targeted is an illusion. We on the Trump side feel exactly the same way. The media is constantly implicitly and explicitly calling us stupid. In Reality, a minority of people on each side stoked these fires on FR, created the perception of attack on both sides, and in doing so probably doubled or tripled the number of pissed off people on both sides, hence creating more attackers.
I have attacked, but I have entirely reserved my attacks directly only to those whose point was 'you are stupid for supporting Trump'.
So ... like I said -> it's an illusion. I like Cruz, he was my first, but then I began thinking Trump was more effective, and simply because of that I've got Cruz supporters implicitly insulting me with every post that thinks you're in a cult for supporting his candidacy.
Since then, there is reason to believe, though I'm not convinced, that Cruz shares the establishment disease - that he's at least partially bought, and therefore no matter how good his intentions, he's compromised, even if on paper he's better. He DOES also appear a bit sneaky. But those are pretty mild concerns compared to the past 20 years of the GOP and how badly they've been unmasked by ... by WHOM? TRUMP. (that's just a little "by-the-way."
There is of course reason to be concerned about Trump.
But as far 'why are you so mean to the Cruz supporters' ... I can't speak for the people who are just here to insult people ... partially that's just the internet ... but it's coming just as much if not more from a lot of Cruz supporters, many of whom I have put in their place ... like liberals, they stop conversing once you bring the burden of a thought process into the discussion.
So my advice is 'toughen up, and see it from both sides, because it's being slung from both, but generated by about 5% of the supporters on each side.'
I was not aware that “What did you think of Cruz a year ago?” was an “incorrect question.”
They've drank the kool-aid and you better not condemn their savior.
Posts like the one you made above are just insulting. It makes it difficult to have an intelligent conversation and diminishes this board.
Funny, that’s what the Trumpsters say about the Cruzbots.
I find Trump to be a flawed candidate, bombastic and annoying with a lot of baggage, but willing and able to win without the GOP shackles that go with having to depend on the GOP machine.
Cruz is Canadian born, hires Bushes to help finance his campaign, takes PAC money, and meets with GOPe favorites Rubio and Jeb! to stop Trump, has lawyerly explanations for his troubling votes and immigration stances.
Neither one is solid gold FReeper consensus conservative material.
My own belief is that either is miles better than Hillary or Bernie, but Cruz is too heavily influenced by the GOPe to be trusted. He called McConnell a liar but emerged unscathed and is now allied with McConnell against Trump, and for all the talk of how Cruz is hated by the “Washington Cartel” he has faced zero consequences for it, lost no committee positions, no cutting off of funding or censure.
Maybe Ted is playing a super deep triple game and will turn on his masters for real once elected, but Trump gets my vote for being a politically incorrect outsider, even if he’s a populist and not a rock ribbed conservative.
When I’m pulling the lever for Trump or Cruz, I’ll be secretly wishing I could vote for Reagan again, and he used to be a Democrat. Nobody is perfect.
I was for Cruz last April before Trump came in, and thought he could win, but honestly thought he was so unpopular and so ineffective in the Senate that as Orez I didn’t think he would do anything except take arrows.
Trump showed me he could send arrows back. After I switched I still planned to support Cruz if he got the nomination, but I do think that he began playing the God card way too heavy, and mixing religion and politics more than anyone since Pat Robertson.
Ok, so if you want to run as William Jennings Bryan, fine but you better be squeaky clean, and then came the “vote fraud” and Carson stuff. Again, ANY OTHER CANDIDATE this wouldn’t have been a big deal, but Cruz’s supporters were going on and on about Trump’s divorces and gambling and now Cruz is down in the dirt. Then the porn actress, then the Rubio-dropping-out rumors, and Beck swearing him in.
But most of all, his continual movement toward the GOPe sealed it for me. He is not an “outsider” at all-—merely an ineffective insider.
Yeas, the mailers were sleazy.
Cruz is 2 for me. Getting congress to work is my top priority. I think cruz has no chance but trump may. Cruz has better conservative principles but can’t make them happen. I hope trump can.
Neil Bush & wife working for Cruz. Establishment.
I won’t really give an answer, sorry. Because i know for a fact everyone in the MSM trolls forums like this right now looking for some form of Trump kryptonite.
I’m not giving them an ounce of sand.
They can just go pound sand.
Sorry, its not personal....its business (!)
Absolutely perfect post.
LOVE the definition of Cruz as Conservative Click Bait. I wish conservatives didn’t fall for it.
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