Columnist.
Despite his big win in New York on Tuesday, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has had a pretty bad week. But will it matter? It should — and just might. During an NBC "Today" show town hall Thursday, the host read a question from Twitter concerning Trump's views on LGBT issues and how he plans to be inclusive as president. "Speak about North Carolina bathroom law in particular."
Can you believe anyone even organizes a "white privilege" conference these days — seven years into Barack Obama's presidency? Well, you'd better believe it, and you should also know that at least one of the speakers at this conference is militantly Christophobic. The 17th annual White Privilege Conference was held in Philadelphia from April 15 to 17. Blake Neff of The Daily Caller attended the conference and reported that "activist and author Paul Kivel" actually claimed that "almost every dysfunction in society, from racism and sexism to global warming and a weak economy, is united by the ideology of 'Christian hegemony.'"
It's one thing to be upset with the so-called Republican establishment for failing to stand up to Barack Obama and his destructive policies, but it's another for a GOP presidential candidate to exploit that anger illegitimately against a fellow anti-establishment candidate. Many of us have been critical of the GOP leadership for opposing conservatives in GOP primaries, not backing conservatives in office trying to do the right thing, always advising that Republicans dilute their message to attract independent voters and not sufficiently recognizing the threat President Obama represents to this nation and opposing his agenda.
I have been concerned for some time that forces supporting Donald Trump have intentionally been laying the groundwork for claiming that Trump will have been cheated if he doesn't earn the GOP nomination. When this primary season began, few people gave Ted Cruz a snowball's chance to be in serious contention, but he has repeatedly demonstrated just how much people underestimated him. He not only is the most informed and consistent on policy but also has assembled a grass-roots organization whose sophistication makes Obama's then-cutting-edge 2008 campaign look like 1990.
I constantly hear that only Donald Trump supporters can understand the Trump phenomenon, as if it were inaccessible to nonbelievers, like the secret knowledge of ancient Gnostics. But I don't believe it's a matter of comprehension. Trump supporters are so tired of the ruling class and are so adamant about a handful of issues that they seem willing to overlook even monumental flaws in their candidate, so long as he will carry the torch against Washington — at least on those major issues. They aren't just willing to ignore flaws; they don't care about them, because things are so bad that only a rogue-like character will have the guts and wherewithal to shake things up.
Six months ago, I warned that Donald Trump's strengths could also be the weaknesses that would destroy his campaign. I think we're beginning to see that play out now. Trump has repeatedly said he is a counterpuncher — that he won't initiate attacks against his rivals but if they were to hit him first he would hit back much harder. He seems to take pride in this, as if it proves his toughness — an essential part of the image he's cultivated. It's not just abstract machismo that he sells but muscularity in promoting the policy issues that form the centerpiece of his campaign.
I really worry that the Trump movement is a misguided reaction to the abuses of power by the ruling class in Washington, D.C. In our dire predicament, we need to be very thoughtful about our remedy. Some presumably well-intentioned people are convinced that because federal politicians have caused the problems threatening America, only an "outsider" can fix them. I understand the sentiment, but a mere cursory comparison of the two leading candidates vying for the GOP presidential nomination exposes the fallacy.
Conservatives and other Obama critics are entitled to a big "I told you so," after Obama's stunning admission that he doesn't believe there's that much difference between communism and capitalism. Actually, it's not that stunning to people paying attention. Many of us warned about Obama's Marxist sympathies before he was first elected president, and we've repeatedly pointed it out during his presidency. Obama was raised and mentored by communists and spent many years engaged in community organizing (radical leftist activism). He established himself as the most liberal member of the Senate. Yet our warnings were met with cries of extremism, irrationality and, of course, racism. I wonder what these scolds would say now.
It is time to address the canard that endorsements for Sen. Ted Cruz from establishment Republicans damage his credibility as an outsider. It is opportunistic and lazy thinking. As the Republican presidential race has narrowed, it is inevitable that the only two viable contenders remaining, Cruz and Donald Trump, will be receiving more endorsements. This is especially true this year because the seriousness of the threats facing the nation and the presence of strikingly unconventional candidates make this the most important election in decades.
This short essay is in response to a friend who asked me to explain how Donald Trump is unacceptable to "movement conservatives." Let's first acknowledge that many Trump supporters don't even claim to be conservative — though others do — and Trump himself is rather dismissive on the point, so they may consider this column a meaningless academic exercise. But a Trump supporter asked, so I'll try to explain. Because I think my questioner was inquiring mostly about issues, I won't delve into Trump's apparent lack of presidential temperament and public deportment — as reflected mostly in the debates and his speeches — other than to suggest that they betray values that don't strike me as particularly conservative.
When I read this morning that Marco Rubio had said that Ted Cruz is the only conservative left in the Republican presidential primary race, it reinforced my decision to write Rubio an open letter urging his endorsement of Sen. Cruz. Rubio didn't go so far as to endorse Cruz, but he could have said nothing at all. Or he could have said, "We have to beat Donald Trump, and only Ted Cruz has a chance to do so." Instead, he specifically said Cruz is the only conservative left in the race, by which he sent a signal that John Kasich is not suitably conservative and that he, Rubio, cares deeply about conservatism. That is significant and gratifying.
It is disheartening that the Wall Street Journal editorial board, for whom I had such respect for years, is discouraging a narrowing of the GOP field if either John Kasich or Marco Rubio wins his home state Tuesday. It's bad enough for the editors to encourage Rubio to stay in if he wins Florida, but to invite Kasich to stay in is just madness. Their underlying assumptions are wrong. They strongly imply that if Trump wins both Ohio and Florida on Tuesday, he'll be the inevitable nominee. They are encouraging a mainstream media narrative that is guaranteed to form Wednesday morning if Trump wins both states (and some of the others).
I appealed to Donald Trump supporters to consider voting for Ted Cruz, and I now make the same request of Marco Rubio supporters. I must emphasize that my primary motivation is to advance conservatism, not to defeat Trump, though the two might be more similar than dissimilar. The remedy for what ails America is full-throated conservatism, not a smattering of populist ideas — no matter how forcefully implemented — and Cruz represents the best opportunity we've had in decades for effecting conservative solutions.
A Donald Trump supporter told me she likes Ted Cruz but doesn't believe he is tough enough to handle the powerful forces he'd face in the general election and asked me to convince her otherwise. Here is a summary of what I told her. I think you overestimate the power of those forces — a crippled Hillary Clinton team and weakened Democrats. And I gather you mistake Trump's toughness in business for the muscular resolve he'd need in public office — while underestimating Cruz's steel backbone.
Mitt Romney's speech against Donald Trump is not likely to win many converts. Romney's remarks will just further vindicate and entrench Trump supporters. Romney, though a good man, is quintessentially GOP establishment and has shown, by his speech, that he still doesn't understand the role he and his colleagues have played in bringing about the Trump surge. During campaign season, these guys always seem to get it. They profess to understand how destructive President Obama's agenda is, but once they're elected, they lose their will to fight, which makes many conservatives believe they didn't believe their own rhetoric in the first place.
Just what is the Trump movement all about? I've tried to get to the bottom of it by conversing with various Donald Trump supporters on Twitter. I have found that most outside the movement are having great difficulty understanding it. It's like nothing we've seen -- at least on the Republican side of the political spectrum. One perplexed person asked me, "Does it shock you that with all the detrimental information on Trump he is still leading in practically every poll?" My answer: "It doesn't shock me so much as disappoint me."
As a Reagan conservative this is a particularly difficult primary season. We finally have what many of us consider a near-perfect candidate on the issues at a perfect time in our history, but obstacles persist. Admittedly, it's not like America got in this desperate condition accidentally. For decades, we have been electing leaders who have been undermining the American dream, and in the last two presidential elections the majority has virtually furnished what could be the final nails in the nation's coffin. Thankfully, Obama had reverse coattails. His agenda was decisively rejected in both the 2010 and 2014 congressional elections, which led many of us to believe his policies weren't popular even if he was.
I don't believe I've ever presumed to offer unsolicited advice on campaign strategy to a presidential candidate, especially in a public forum, but I've decided to make an exception today. I am an unabashed Ted Cruz supporter and believe he is a man of character, integrity and strong principles who is as close to the ideal antidote for what ails America as we're likely to see. But since the Iowa primary I've been worried. After talking to many of those who have Ted's best interests in mind, in real life and on Twitter and Facebook, I think I have a handle on what the major concerns are, and I think the campaign must address them.
As a supporter of Ted Cruz I have had many supporters of other candidates tell me that he would not be electable in the general election. I disagree. Yes, Cruz is caricatured in social media and elsewhere as unlikable and as one who doesn't play well with others. He's too extreme and we need someone who can draw independents to win, and, once elected, unite us in bipartisan action. He just isn't as handsome as Rubio, they say. Yet I have seen polls showing that Cruz is the most well-liked candidate among Republican voters, so you can't always rely on anecdotal evidence — or expert commentary. The reason is that we all have a tendency to project our own feelings on to the general population.
I realize that as an evangelical Christian I have a dog in this fight, but I want to say a few words about evangelicals and the unfortunate effort afoot to make them the political boogeyman. There are so many misconceptions about "evangelicals" — from the definition of the word to the intentions of the people themselves — but the most damaging myth is that we evangelicals seek a theocracy for the United States of America, which couldn't be further from the truth. I'll get back to that, but first a little background.
