It is a banality to say that the Republican establishment opposes Trump. I don't know why it is necessary to say that the Republican establishment also opposes Cruz and with better reason. But that banality requires some sense of proportion, the failure of Donald Trump to secure grassroots conservative activist support is almost entirely unrelated to the opposition to Trump by the establishment. These people are not cutting deals with K St., they are not intimate with Mitch McConnell, these are ideologically committed conservatives who for the most part make their living outside of politics and they see in Ted Cruz a real conservative and they see something repugnant in Donald Trump.
To argue that Donald Trump is actually a victim of a campaign of victimization is sheer projection. I have been an adamant opponent of Donald Trump because of his character failings and I know damn well that I'm not a member of the Republican establishment. Donald trumps failings are real, his opponents need not invent anything to victimize him, they need only review his biography. I have catalogued over and over for readers generally and for you in particular the myriad disqualifying incidents and character traits of Donald Trump. Donald Trump has not been demonized, he has been exposed.
There is no reason to believe that the party will be splintered just because Cruz gets the nomination. If the party is so splintered it is because Trump partisans decline to unite with the party nominee. Somehow this is accepted as legitimate behavior. To turn your face away from the fact that the nomination of Donald Trump is likely to splitter the party is to indulge in willful blindness. Those who will not support Donald Trump will do so because they are offended by the man and he has only himself to blame, not the Republican establishment, not the conservative grassroots, but his own big mouth. By way of one example among many, it's is not just feminists, not just Democrat women, not just single women, but staunch conservative women who are utterly offended by Donald Trump. 75% of women when nothing to do with the man and that is not the fault of the Republican establishment, it is certainly not the fault of Ted Cruz, the fault is not in the stars but in Donald Trump himself.
I reject entirely your supposition:
So, to summarize, you cheer for a scenario in which Ted Cruz swipes the nomination from Donald Trump, splinters the party, destroys voter enthusiasm, and goes on to lose in a landslide in November.
Another supposition for which there is utterly no evidence but, indeed, real evidence to the contrary is your projection that trump's narcissism "would not attempt such mayhem." The facts to the contrary are that Donald Trump has more than once threatened to bolt the party, perhaps run as a third-party candidate but in any event throw a spanner into the works and prevent the election of a Republican candidate. It is Trump who has made these threats not Cruz. There is no warrant for any suggestion that the opposite of these facts will obtain.
I reject emphatically your assertion that "Ted Cruz has exhibited his selfishness and lack of character repeatedly throughout his campaign." Every allegation from those beginning in Iowa to those in Colorado are false, unfounded, and propaganda actions of the Trump. The attacks against Ted Cruz have falsely accused him of adultery, scurrilous lay a maligned his religious faith, and insinuated that his father is guilty of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Nothing approaches that degree of malicious lying against an opponent can be credibly associated with Cruz.
I will be in America next week where I will be no better off to judge the situation than I am from here in Germany. I have access to the same sources of information that you do. If you live in Texas you are hardly talking to people who are in Massachusetts. You get your information from the same sources I do and I'm in no worse position geographically to form these opinions. I trust unlike other Trump supporters you are not insinuating some lack of patriotism.
I still await hearing from you whether you will support Cruz if he is nominated?
There is no reason to believe that the party will be splintered just because Cruz gets the nomination. That;s patently absurd, and represents a statement of someone who is detached from reality.
I still await hearing from you whether you will support Cruz if he is nominated?
I've answered that question to you before.
I'm confident that Ted Cruz's nomination categorically will not happen, but in the event it does, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. In the past, I've expressed my willingness to vote for Ted Cruz if nominated, but that was in the context of Ted Cruz achieving a delegate majority before the convention.
As things stand, in view of the "NeverTrump" conspiracy (as evidenced, for example, by the tweet sent out by the official Colorado GOP Twitter account in the immediate aftermath of their delegate theft) I would find it very difficult to support Ted Cruz under such circumstances.
So would millions of other Trump voters who aren't as reasonable as I am, and with good reason. Indeed, strong majorities of GOP voters are on the record as believing that the party nomination should go to the candidate with the most delegates entering the convention, clear majority or no. This is yet another strong indicator of the splintering that would inevitably accompany the nomination of a candidate so weak, opportunist, and morally bankrupt as Ted Cruz. Not to mention the disloyalty to his own party and the total lack of leadership he showed in the aftermath of the cancellation of Trump's Chicago rally.
In fact, my sentiments illustrate many of the reasons that Ted Cruz usurping the nomination from Donald Trump would splinter the party, because the process, and the lead up to it would, rightly or wrongly (rightly, in my view) be perceived as the product of a totally illegitimate series of events. It's undeniable, unless you're a Ted Cruz fanboy, which an even larger swath of the country is not when contrasted with Donald Trumps significantly broader support.
That, no pun intended, is the elephant that would be in the room, should Cruz somehow magically succeed in wresting the nomination from its legitimate recipient, Donald Trump.
You've presented no credible argument for Cruz uniting the party given the real events which have been occurring for the last few months. The reason for that is that there is no credible argument. There is only wishful thinking and willful denial of reality.
The process has been tainted by the elites, to which Ted Cruz has hitched his wagon. That is the perception, and that will remain the perception, and I see no way for that perception to be altered.
That is why Cruz's mission is Quixotic, suicidal, egotistical, narcissistic, and pvertly destructive to the both the party and country. GOP voters aren't interested in Machiavellian candidates who act as the willing dupes of a corrupt elite intent on, literally, sabotaging the will of voters to the greatest extent that they can.
Anyone who is both intellectually honest, patriotic, and sane must hope, for the sake of the nation, that Donald Trump secure a clear delegate majority in the face of the overt corruption of the party elite, as well as the naked opportunism and conceit which Ted Cruz has engaged in and fallen prey to.
To argue that Donald Trump is actually a victim of a campaign of victimization is sheer projection.
False. By the way, it's a campaign of demonization, clear for all to see, and denying it because it comports with your propaganda goals is the "sheer projection".
The reasons that Ted Cruz neither deserves the nomination nor will get the nomination are obvious to even the most low information GOP voters in America. More and more Americans are warming to Donald Trump even in the face of an unprecedented campaign of demonization, whether conducted by media organization, pundits, or individuals of your ilk.
A Cruz nomination equals a Hillary victory and a splintered GOP. While you're at liberty to deny that, you aren't capable of effectively dismissing it or explaining it away. You're woefully behind the curve, as is Ted Cruz himself.
The longer this denial persists, the greater the risk for Hillary winning and the party splintering, and the more damage will be done to Ted Cruz's burgeoning political career.
Public opinion is shifting massively against Ted Cruz even as we speak, and that's just the reality of the situation. He may very well hang on for a while longer in his misguided and selfish quest for validation, but, sooner or later, he will acknowledge the truth of the situation.
The wiser among his supporters have already done so, as evidenced by the open letter to Senator Cruz so skillfully composed and posted by FReeper Jeff Head only a day ago.
He, an ardent Cruz supporter, clearly outlined what the disastrous consequences would be should the GOP convention be contested and the clear frontrunner displaced, and I find his reasoning to be far more compelling than the wishful thinking upon which you base your hopes for a contested convention, followed by a magical unifying of the party behind a candidate which GOP voters have resoundingly rejected in all but a handful of states.
The Revolution is ON!
Vote Trump
Trump is definitely not a narcissist. He’s very confident and has a very healthy ego. From his successes. Socially and in business. Trump is not a perfect guy but he is 100% more genuine than Ted Cruz. Cruz has to obfuscate and deny all the time. He lies on camera about things that are provably false in one quick google search.
You are so smart and so knowledgable. But maybe you don’t have good “spitzengefuhl” for a person’s psyche. You find your problems with Donald Trump’s character and not Ted Cruz’s, even as both of theirs have been on display both these past months and especially in Trump’s case from way back.
I took Cruz’s character for granted at the beginning of the campaign season. I believed he was a deeply devout practicing Christian and a servant of our Constitution. Now it is evident I was very wrong about that. He is acting like a lawyer. Twisting and turning evidence to avoid bumping up against laws, parsing to make himself look better, and the aforementioned lying outright. At minimum he spent a lot of alone time late at night with that Amanda woman, which does not fit the character he tries to portray. No one working with him has any affection for him. He does not tithe and appears not to give much to any community. He has an Asperger’s like cluelessness of how he appears to others.
Trump’s character has been that of a brash businessman, a confident hale fellow well met, a ladies’ man, and a straight forward honest manner. While he does attempt to put himself in the best light, he has a limit after which he assumes people can handle him the way he is. He has the kind of NY attitude I grew up with on the West Coast among Jewish friends and family. He is known for doing quiet acts of generosity. His character appears harsher and ruder but he is actually kinder and more sincere, just after watching them both all season.
Cruz doesn’t have a genuine bone in his body. He hides all of his dirtier sides, like his eligibility (he may be eligible but he was only Canadian on paper until he was 16), the Goldman Sachs stuff, and any inconvenient political history. Trump is mostly forthright about these things.
Cruz wears the mantle of conservative and Christian, but without more than lip service to either cloak. Trump doesn’t. He is what you see is what you get.