It’d be much easier for Cruz to get things passed than Trump. Trump’s negatives are so high that it’d be much easier for the opposition to demonize him as being crazy or outrageous and laugh off his proposals.
Trump is also much more likely to cave into public pressure or polling, because his principles are not rock-solid and long-held, as he showed when letting a transsexual into his beauty pageant after initially saying it wouldn’t happen.
Cruz will rigidly stick to his principles and can more easily convince the public to get on board by addressing the public in a soft-spoken but firm manner, just as Ronald Reagan did.
I would say both of them would be equally likely to veto bad legislation coming from their own party.
The mature sober part of me agrees ... but I don’t think anything other than a paradigm change in the way the citizens of the country VIEW our country will turn things around.
When I say what I said, I’m talking about Cruz’s ability to move the citizens of the country - not his ability to move legislation.
If Cruz is elected, we will experience some, and perhaps slightly significant, movement in the current idiocy and self destructiveness of the CITIZENS of the nation.
Here’s another way of putting it: If you want to stop a herd of lemmings from running off a cliff, you don’t reason with them, however well, about the mathematics of their course. You’re past that. You best chance is to drop a bomb in the middle of the herd, completely throw chaos into the mentality, and hope that it settles on almost any different course.
If all Trump does as a president is ‘get stuff passed’, even as well as Cruz might, then nothing has changed.
That would be the idea on which I would base support for Trump. Someone needs to seriously mess with the lemmings minds, because that’s how they got to be where they are.
The current stampede towards a cliff is not based on an inertial created by reason. So the stampede won’t be turned back by it. The stampede was given speed and momentum mass hypnosis. Cruz can’t undo that - the guy is about as EMOTIONALLY inspiring as ... Bob Dole ... even though he’s 300 times the Patriot and brain.
Trump, whether you call it a virtue or not, can create a cultish atmosphere. He does care about the country. I’m not part of the cult, but I look at the Lemmings and say “our immediate problem is the direction and speed of the lemmings, what force can change that fast enough that they don’t reach the cliff, and maybe, once the direction is changed, they can be put under more sober forces again like reason and love for the ideas in the Constitution, of our founders’
Can Cruz make this country fall back in love with itself, give it’s pride back? I say no - that he can’t affect that change. You? Me? Sure - we’re already proud of America, so we resonate with him. But if he wins, all we get is half the country pining for 4 years later when maybe Lizzy Warren runs.
Can Trump? Maybe. Trump is UNREASONABLE. His unspoken motto is something like “F*ck it, we’ll find a way.” That’s what turns things around for teams at half time - a complete break in the thought pattern - tapping into pride and ‘F*ck it.’
When things are headed in the right direction again ... is when you want sober leadership to strengthen the new direction.
If you don’t believe it’s half time in football and we’re down 57 to 3, then you might be more ‘reasonable’ than I’m being. I think we’re down 57 to 3 at halftime, and too many think we’re down 31 to 21 or something and we’ve got this great rusher Cruz. This country needs a turn around coach, and the turn around will be based on emotion, not sound reasoning.
All of us here - we are ‘right’ about everything. Our positions are solid, backed by history, well reasoned, coherent, cogent, and would work beautifully if the rest of the team based their actions on reason and good sense. How long, though, have we been right? And what has happened during all that time we’ve been right? The founders began this country at a time when, ethically or not, the vote was mostly in the hands of those with a stake in the outcome of the country. That’s no longer true.
Can Cruz make people align their personal choices (responsibility, how they vote) with the outcome of the country as well as the outcome for themselves?
Right now, the numbers are telling who is affecting people, making them think. You can’t deny that Trump is the most effective of the candidates when it comes to what’s above. You also can’t deny that if we base the choice on ‘what works’ rather than ‘what is right’, Trump wins. As capitalists, free market people first, not government people first -> Trump has the better scorecard.
I am not advocating for Trump on this site - NOT ONE BIT. I’m not even as convinced of what I’m saying as the force with which I’m saying it -> for now -> I’m just observing. But the ideas behind what I’m saying - the arguments - they can not be overlooked. Trump is the most effective candidate out there (and of course right now we’re only in a popularity contest, not a governing one).
But pride is the most important factor in a people, unless it’s a total false pride. Trump’s pride in America is not false. There’s nothing saying he can’t be the coach, cheerleader, knee basher, deal maker, while surrounding himself with the best policy makers.
Mostly - thinking out loud. That’s what I’ve been thinking.
Not going to proofread this ... bedtime! ... I’m sure there is some stupid spelling error that makes at least one sentence not be what I meant. If you see one ... please assume I meant what fits the context :-). I totally get your point, and it’s totally valid and perhaps what I’m saying in theory is nice but would be a disaster. Not yet convinced either way.