Cruz strikes me as intellectually conservative, but in his heart, only cruzervative.
That's sincere - it's not a knock.
I believe Cruz CHOSE conservatism intellectually as his mask, his sword - which is natural for a man who's made up mostly of just intellect - because it's rational - if you want to win a debate, you really can't be a liberal, and that may be all there is of Cruz - an argument - perhaps most of the time well formed. Real conservatives didn't first learn and adopt conservative arguments and debating points. Long before we knew what conservative formal philosophy and dogma was, whenever we met liberalism, we puked, even before we knew what it was called. Learning to argue and debate came later.
Conservatism is visceral - real conservatism is. You're disgusted by the left and love love love liberty because that's what we de facto are - like a lion cub dropped out of his mama on an african plain. Of course you are free. That doesn't mean you don't have to fight to keep it, or that you might lose your physical freedom. But you never believe you are anything but free, and anyone who threatens that ... you know in your heart you will kill them if necessary, if it comes to that, without a shred of guilt or hesitation.
But intellectual conservatism and liberty is merely an argument. It's all NR ever was ... a cult backed up by decent logic ... and see what happened to them?
Conservatism was only a means to power and being in the club
What proof is there that Cruz is any different? That he actually LOVES anything? To be conservative, you FIRST have to have a heart, THEN it has to incline strongly in a natural direction - and you have to realize that's who you are before you are abused and manipulated into being something else.
Cruz I think only loves the debate, and he loves it because it's his path to power ... for Cruz, it's just a winning formula. That's what I get when I watch him and listen to him.
Call me nasty all you want - many of you who already have. This has been my visceral reaction to Cruz from the first time I saw him speak. At first I thought him just awkward and overly rehearsed. But I've yet to see a breathing human being - I see only an intellect in service of ego - and as soon as that winning formula fails, he'll move to the next thing that will serve his starving ego.
This is consistent and common, though certainly not a guarantee, for kids who grew up in chaotic, mentally ill and dysfunctional alcoholic style families. A few, if they escape the mental illness genes that are present in probably 80% of these families and either totally escape or get caught and then escape the booze/drugs ... are left untouched and even strengthened by the experience. Ted shows signs of mere overachievement and over intellectualization as a defense against a total lack of normal human psychological nutrition.
Can't prove it - but sense it enough to say -> can't put him in serious power so long as there's even a 5% chance this is accurate or near accurate.
Now, apply that same ointment to Donald Trump and see how it melds.....