Exactly. They dislike Cruz personally, and a lot of them don’t think he’s electable, but they also don’t think a Cruz win would destroy the Republican party. Trump, on the other hand, would turn the party on its head and probably break it apart.
Cruz may be a pain in the ass to them, but as a candidate he’s not an embarrassment to the party, and he doesn’t hold principles directly opposed to the party platform. He just doesn’t play nice with the people in the party who demand deference and respect. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, since those are the people running institutions with a 17% approval rating.
Cruz is a threat to the establishment’s domination of policy. Trump is a threat to the entire party - and the country.
Cruz believes the Supreme Court should be subject to Congressional control or regular elections.
His idea of religious liberty is a return to bigotry and discrimination.
He’s just as big a threat to the country.
Not really. Dunkin is big in many states in the East. And all but absent from many in the Midwest. And pretty thin on the ground in some other areas. There are more DDs in my Miami suburb of 80,000 people than there are in all of Greater Los Angeles’s 10 million people.
AFAIK, they’re the closest the US has to a national donut chain. But like Krispy Kreme, they’re really a regional thing just now putting feelers out into the rest of the country.
Said another way, there’s plenty of territory available for Tim Horton’s. As long as they don’t try a frontal assault through New England. They’d probably be fought to the death right at the border by DD & KK.
They don’t have to keep him in line on most things. Yes, funding the government could be an issue–except that was only because he wasn’t getting his way. He wasn’t the only Republican who wanted what he wanted, just one of a small group willing to shut down the government to get it.
I think they are far more scared of Trump. Having him be President is not having a Republican as president. He is an actual RINO. Cruz is fully Republican.
They’ve built 2 Tim Hortons in places I drive by regularly in the past <5 years, and there were plenty here before that. While the Detroit area certainly is just north of the border, it’s not like there’s only a couple here and there. They are absolutely everywhere these days.
But I agree with your political view. If Cruz wins, the power structure stays. The platform might be a tad more extreme than normal, but not by much. If Trump wins he tosses the non-elected establishment out, and who knows what the platform will look like.
Plus, Trump has a day job, and so is more dangerous.
So Cruz won’t abolish the IRS or eviscerate the EPA? He won’t veto every budget that funds a project or group he doesn’t like? Well, he does speak so much slicker than Trump so I’m sure you’re correct.
Cruz will do the same thing that every politician will do if they win the nomination - tack back towards the center. The question is really how far he’d tack back.
Cruz really isn’t the authoritarian you think he is. He has libertarian instincts with socially conservative beliefs. The way he squares that is to simply defer such issues back to the states. For example, he’s against smoking pot, but I believe his platform is that the states should be able to decide, which puts him to the left of Obama on that issue. He also advocates for lesser penalties for federal drug crimes.
He’s not a trade protectionist like Trump and Sanders, he advocated for states to be allowed to support gay marriage or not as they chose, etc. He really does believe that the federal government should not wield so much power, and that cuts both ways. He wants to reduce regulations and the size of government, but that also means he’s not interested in regulating your personal life, which works out well for civil liberties even if he doesn’t agree with your moral or lifestyle choices.
I think his approach to government is very much rooted in his tendency to think like a lawyer. He wants to restore the government back to the limits set out in the law and the constitution. That’s what motivates him.
Is there a GOP core anymore? I can’t tell. Is it Republican politicians? Reince Priebus? The Tea Partiers? Christians? Angry white guys? Racists who hate that we have a black president?
I know the Democratic core tends to be urban, largely minority and low to middle class.
Republicans have worked so hard to attract disaffected white guys that the rich well educated businessmen who once believed that government should be small but effective no longer have a place in their own party. They’re asshurt that they are now the wallflowers standing aside wondering why the good looking chicks won’t give them the time of day. The GOP core is gone.
Of course he will. But that is all good solid Republican platform stuff already, so they aren’t worried about it. Trump might propose something crazy like raising taxes on the rich or supporting Social Security.
We’re talking about who the establishment hates, not who you and I hate. I’d say Kaddish for either or both of them in a second.
One other thing that should matter to liberals: Ted Cruz would scale back the executive power of the Presidency and attempt to restore the fundamental checks and balances of the government. Donald Trump would enjoy executive power as much as Snoop Dogg enjoys a good blunt - and he’d be about as coherent while using it.
Cruz is exactly as personally ambitious and unprincipled. Don’t kid yourself that he actually believes his schtick as much as his True Believers do. There is zero reason to believe that his goal in office would be to reduce his own power.
