…from the Washington Post….
A president always defines his or her party, and today the Republican Party has taken a wrong turn, led by a serial self-promoter who has abandoned the bedrock principles of the GOP. In the Trump era, personal responsibility, fiscal sanity and rule of law have been overtaken by a preference for alienating our allies while embracing terrorists and dictators, attacking the free press and pitting everyday Americans against one another.
No surprise, then, that the latest disgrace, courtesy of Team Trump, is an effort to eliminate any threats to the president’s political power in 2020. Republicans have long held primaries and caucuses to bring out the best our party has to offer. Our political system assumes an incumbent president will make his case in front of voters to prove that he or she deserves to be nominated for a second term. But now, the Republican parties of four states — Arizona, Kansas, Nevada and South Carolina — have canceled their nominating contests. By this design, the incumbent will be crowned winner of these states’ primary delegates. There is little confusion about who has been pushing for this outcome.
What does this say about the Republican Party? If a party stands for nothing but reelection, it indeed stands for nothing. Our next nominee must compete in the marketplace of ideas, values and leadership. Each of us believes we can best lead the party. So does the incumbent. Let us each take our case to the public. The saying “may the best man win” is a quintessential value that the Republican Party must honor if we are to command the respect of the American people. Cowards run from fights. Warriors stand and fight for what they believe. The United States respects warriors. Only the weak fear competition….
Some pretty good stuff being said here…
Too bad very few Republicans are listening.
I was told by a Republican friend of mine who has said several times he is not blindly for Trump that the 3 challengers are “not impressive”.
If someone finds Trump “impressive” I’m not sure what yardstick they use though.
My favorite line from the Trumpites is their dissing of Sanford for his affair with the Argentinian woman and the”Appalachian “ trail fiasco.
Presumably such offend their “conservative values”
I mean they are supporting the old “pussy grabber” who paid off a porn actress that he screwed while married ,and was a regular on Howard Sterns sexually explicit radio show for years, among other transgressions against their faux moralistic “beliefs.”
Their hypocrisy simply knows no bounds!
Like in all cults the leader csn get away with stuff no one else can.
This same Republican said Trump packing rallies with suppprters shows there’s no need for a GOP primary debate.
I pointed out that a dangerous precedent was set by replacing democratic institutions with rallies several decades ago halfway across the world but he was unmoved.
Ted Cruz was extremely blunt on ABC or CNN this morning when asked why he (like fellow Republicans) now supports Trump when he’d been Trump’s strongest and most vocal foe in 2016.
He said that Republicans like Trump because he delivers Republican results in (for example) judicial nominations, taxes and deregulation (implicitly overriding possible differences over immigration, free trade or foreign/national-security policy).
This is the relevant part of the rush transcript of Sen. Cruz’ interview with George Stephanopoulos this morning. I haven’t abridged anything.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me close with a question of what he’s done to the Republican Party.
And, boy, when you ran against Donald Trump, you did not mince any words, called him a pathological liar, a bully, said, imagine what would happen in the next five years if he were president.
Now you — you’re supporting him for reelection. He’s unified the Republican Party behind him as well.
How do you explain that? Were you just wrong then? What changed?
CRUZ: Results matter.
We have delivered on policy. For two-and-a-half years, I have worked very closely with the president, and we have seen remarkable results for the American people. We passed the biggest tax cut in a generation. That’s a big deal.
I worked hard to bring Republicans together to deliver on that. We have repealed hundreds of job-killing regulations. That’s incredibly important, because the result is, the economy has taken off. We have the lowest unemployment in 50 years.
We have got — you know, the numbers came out just the other day. African-American poverty is the lowest we have ever recorded. Hispanic poverty is the lowest we have ever recorded. Those are real results.
Six million people have come off of food stamps. Those are lives being changed. Not only that, our nation is safer. We’re rebuilding our military. We’re standing by our friends and allies. We’re standing up to our enemies.
And we have confirmed 150 new constitutionalist judges to the bench. Those are real results.
And so, listen, yes, in 2016, I had a vigorous primary, where we had a significant contest. The people decided. The election is over. Donald Trump is our president. And I had a job to do, represent 28 million Texans.
And I have done that each and every day. And I’m proud of the results that, working together, we have been able to produce. And I think the American people want to continue seeing jobs and economic prosperity going forward.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-15-19-mayor-pete-buttigieg-sen/story?id=65621896
¶ By the way, between the four major network talk shows this morning (CNN-SotU, ABC, NBC-MtP & CBS-FtN), I got to see five of the seven principal challengers to Biden, Sanders & Warren, all except Kamala Harris & Julián Castro — viz Pete Buttegieg, Cory Booker, Andrew Yang, Beto O’Rourke and Amy Klobuchar,
None of the four GOP candidates in 2020, but two from 2016: Ted Cruz and Chris Christie.
Remember that our supposedly “liberal media” painted Trump as a “different kind of Republican” in 2016. Now Republicans know that ruse is up. He is a tried and true conservative Republican. No legitimate news outlet this time around will be able to posit that he is somehow not 100% in line with GOP orthodoxy of cutting taxes for the rich, trying to gut health care and letting corporations pollute as they wish.
Independenr voters 2jo broke for Trump last time when the media was still pushing that “different Republican” narrative will be free to do as Ted Cruz said and “consider the results”.
Could we more likely say the lemmings are FOLLOWING Trump as he muddles thru…
I know he does conservative stuff…
But in many cases it’s straight up Donald J. Trump outer world shit….
No one ever said the guy was dumb…
Lawrence Tribe (hardly a conservative partisan) taught Ted Cruz at Harvard Law School and said Cruz was his brightest student.
No doubt on Cruz….
I wonder when he turned to the dark side?
Cruz is clearly a gifted debater – and the ability to think logically on your feet is a sign of great intelligence.
Yup….
So Cruz is “smart.”
Big deal.
Many presidential historians believe that Richard Nixon was one of our most intelligent presidents.
I’m not particularly impressed that he is “smart.”
Whether a person is smart doesn’t say anything about whether he is honest, trustworthy, has good values, cares about people who are not like him, has integrity or a bunch of other things.
I would never vote for Cruz. But he ranks as one of the most intelligent senators.
We should be able to say something positive about someone we would not vote for, without simultaneously finding fault in another area. Hell, we often criticize people we don’t like without trying to find something about them that we like.
As evidenced by the canonization of their party leader most Republicans simply think rich=smart.
So Croz being “smart”?
We’ll see how that plays in the 2024 GOP primaries against Ivanka or Don Jr.
Me neither Z on Cruz…
Good point Jack…
Nixon also gets credit for his foreign policy by historians…
But his Watergate actions overrule everything…