Bots and their bogeymen

I've long maintained that supposedly right-of-center Squirrel-Hair enthusiasts have justified their zeal for this clown by constructing straw men and phantasms.

Jen Kuznicki, writing at Conservative Review, agrees and makes my case so cogently I don't know what I could add.

One thing that Donald Trump has managed to do is add a yet unquantifiable number of voters to Republican roles who do not believe in conservative principles. In doing so he has made the establishment even more impermeable against a conservative challenge.

But to hear the Trump supporters online tell it, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) is an establishment lackey.

They cite Cruz’s attendance of Ivy League schools and his rise in Republican politics as an official in the George W. Bush administration as clues in their wide-ranging conspiracy against the Texas senator.

But Ted Cruz has been fighting the established ranks of the Republican Party, the big government Democrat capitulation experts, and the communist Democratic Party and all their social experiments throughout his entire political career.

Cruz’s Ivy League schooling was purely through merit. He paid for college outside of his scholarships by working, he ascended to the highest levels of litigation- even arguing in front of the Supreme Court, through merit.  The fact that he is also the son of a Cuban immigrant is such an inspiring story it should have been included in Jeb Bush’s Immigration Wars along with the several personal accounts contained therein about legal immigration.

No, Cruz is not establishment. The three-decade entrenched Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is, the feckless crybaby Boehner is, the sanctimonious Iran-dealing Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) is, the hyper-interventionist duo of Sens. McCain (R-AZ) and Graham (R-SC) are establishment. And while we’re at it, so is Hillary Clinton, the entire Democratic Party, and Hillary’s donor, Donald Trump.

In “What Exactly is the Establishment,” I noted that anyone in D.C. who is actively trying to keep the power in Washington and out of the hands of the people, are the “establishment.”

But to understand this, Trump supporters have to understand what is keeping the people of the United States from their constitutional responsibilities of being in charge of their government. Their oft-used “We the People” mantra to describe their candidate’s mandate isn’t a mandate at all with only 40 percent or so of the Party’s voters.  And their belief that this strongman will do everything they want ignores the warning that a government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have.

It is big government that is frustrating us all, yet only a handful of conservatives are acknowledging it. The Republican Party elites mention it at election time, but they continue to grow government with their Democrat “friends across the aisle.”

For years, LITD has employed a term - the Reasonable Gentleman - to describe - I like to think more precisely than terms like RINO or squish - a certain beltway attitude that has been instrumental in bringing us to our current juncture.

The Bots have not tapped into frustration with Reasonable Gentleman Syndrome. They have, rather, exploited it, for purposes that expose the superficiality of their fealty to actual conservative principles.

We could have had Ted Cruz.

We blinked.

Is it too late?

I don't know, but I refuse to "get in line" an I most certainly will not shut up.