If Ted Cruz is the best candidate the Republican Party can
come up with, it is a failure as a political party. Cruz represents a narrow base of
very conservative, very religious, uneducated or intellectually uninterested voters.
In an interview with Steve Inskeep of NPR,
Cruz said that scientific evidence does not support global warming. He would not directly answer the question of
whether evolution is scientific fact. A PBS
summary said that he would mandate a balanced budget. Paul
Krugman reported that Cruz wants to return to the gold standard, adding, “there’s
no sign in current asset prices that investors see a significant chance of the catastrophe
that would follow a return to gold.” Cruz
would repeal ObamaCare. He would move
toward a flat tax and abolish the IRS.
Cruz must be a smart man.
He graduated from Princeton and Harvard Law. He clerked for the Supreme Court. How can he cling to ideas that are so out of
touch with reality. Apparently he uses
his brilliant intellect to defend indefensible positions. His arguments ring hollow to many, but his devotees
accept them. This is true of many
Republicans. Wisconsin looks like an
intelligent state, but it has elected Scott Walker as governor and Paul Ryan as
a congressman, despite the fact that they adhere to many of the non-fact-based
ideas that Cruz espouses. As Speaker,
Paul Ryan is considered somewhat of a moderate, although his ideas are well out
on the political fringe compared to Republican ideas for the last hundred
years.
While Cruz is terrible, my poster child for what’s wrong
with the Republican Party is Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader. I see his policies in the Senate as unabashed
hatred of the United States. If the
government won’t do what he wants it to do, he will tie it up and choke it to
death, by cutting of funding, blocking appointments, blocking legislation,
etc. He throws sand into the gears of
government so that it cannot operate.
But the United States cannot exist without some government. One of the main results of his intransigence
has been the prolonged slow growth of the economy. If we could have funded some infrastructure
projects, we could have created jobs much faster than we did. As it is, we are approaching full employment, but American infrastructure is deteriorating badly.
Mitch McConnell doesn’t care if your bridge falls down, your passenger
train goes off the tracks, or your flight runs into another one on the ground
because of inability to monitor taxiways.
He would fund some things, like the military, particularly military
hardware, but not if it means funding things like education or pollution
control.
The Republican Party had a chance to bring itself into the
21st century this election, but chose not to. As it did four years ago, it had public
debates that included a number of total losers with no qualifications to be
President. If they don’t like Donald
Trump, they have no one to blame but themselves. The idea that in order to stop Trump they
have crowned Cruz as the man who represents the very best of the Republican
Party is moronic. Everybody knows that
his fellow Senators hate him. Like
McConnell he is ready to destroy the government if he doesn’t get his way. If American schools insist on teaching
evolution, he may abolish public schools.
Every child will be on his own to learn wherever he can.
Compared to Cruz, Mitt Romney looks like a liberal
philosopher and a master politician. How
can there be no competent CEOs (that leaves out Carly Fiorina) who are willing
to be President? This is essentially how
Donald Trump puts himself forward.
Republicans have been less inclined to talk about his management skills
than his personality, which they hate.
The country could use a good manager; if they don’t like Trump, find
one. It’s not Cruz or Kasich.
One problem is that the President’s salary is a pittance
compared to what CEOs make. But thay
also have no interest in governing, like Mitch McConnell. They are motivated solely by avarice and
greed, and violate either the letter or spirit of every law they can to enrich themselves without
going to jail. If America were destroyed
by a nuclear war, J.P. Morgan’s Jamie Dimon would be on a plane leaving the
country before the bombs hit, and would set up shop in London or Hong Kong,
making money off of the war and never shedding a tear for the millions of
Americans who died. He and his follow
CEOs represent the nadir of humanity, the darkest depths to which mankind has
sunk in the 21st century.
There are no Republican leaders to be found there.
In the old days, the military often was a source of national
leaders, but after Vietnam, the military has fallen into such disrepute that it
cannot attract high caliber people to its ranks. No one who graduated from Harvard or Stanford
would think of making a career in the military.
The military has some good people, but they are not of the first
quality.
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