Character and Principles: Why Ted Cruz Should Be The Next President Regardless

posted in: Politics | 2

Senator Ted Cruz should be the next President of the United States of America, but…

Ted Cruz 2016

Ted Cruz looks weird and sounds obnoxious.

My two oldest sons – Josiah (8) and Elihu (7) – watched the most recent GOP debate with me last Thursday and commented that Senator Cruz has “a pointy face – like a triangle.” I had to laugh, but they were right!

Ted Cruz’s voice is… not exactly sexy, shall we say. It’s kind of like the sound a balloon makes when you’re letting the air out of it slowly. It’s not my favorite.

Did you catch where he ate what appeared to be a booger on live TV during that most recent debate? Yup. True story! It fell right out of his nose and onto his upper lip while he was speaking, then dangled there for a few tortuous moments before he casually pursed his mouth and gobbled it up. I realize there wasn’t much the poor man could do to save face, but it was positively cringe-worthy.

I watched him being interviewed by Megyn Kelly on Fox last night. After telling what he thought was a funny story about one of his two young daughters, he laughed very woodenly. He was super awkward bobbing up and down as he chuckled, and reminded me of my many computer nerd friends from high school. What a dweeb!

Twice in the past two weeks I’ve been chatting with someone about Ted Cruz when they’ve said something along the lines of “I don’t know what it is, but something about him just gives me the creeps. He looks and sounds awkward and mean.” Maybe it’s his triangular booger-eating face or his far from melodious voice, but they just can’t tell me with any specificity.

Doesn’t matter. That settles it! Pack it up and go home, boys. We can’t elect Ted Cruz to be our next President because he looks weird and sounds obnoxious. Right?

No. Please no. That’s not right.

All these complaints are entirely frivolous and beside the point. If the race were a beauty pageant – or handsomeness pageant, if you will – Mitt Romney could jump in even late in the game and he would win. As is often said, “Mitt looks and sounds Presidential.” His voice, hair, poise – the former governor of Massachusetts carries himself with dignity and nobility, to be sure, and I admire that.

Both Presidents John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton looked and spoke very charming also, and it can be argued that this is why we elected those two men. But both spent their years in the Oval Office as they spent their years out of it, being entirely too charming with many women who were not their wives. To my mind, the philandering of both men was and still is a national shame and disgrace.

My point is that the race for President isn’t a beauty pageant, and it isn’t American Idol, otherwise we’ll be putting Kanye West and Kim Kardashian in the White House four years from now when Kanye has told us he plans to run. A good candidate needs to have the right principles and character first and foremost, regardless of aesthetic. Quite frankly, I don’t care if Quasimodo runs for President so long as he has good character and is committed to governing according to the right principles.

So why should we care if Ted Cruz doesn’t charm us by his looks and the sound of his voice? Being culturally vain and obsessed with entertainment and aesthetics are lousy reasons.

Ted Cruz doesn’t cut deals.

The biggest complaint people seem to have about Ted Cruz – besides implying that he looks or sounds weird, as if that had any bearing on his candidacy – is that Cruz has been an obstructionist in the United States Senate and doesn’t play well with others.

But, to be honest, that’s just a negative spin on what seems to me to be part of Cruz’s best quality. Ted Cruz is bold and unwavering in defending his core principles. He’s shown us time and again that he’s not willing to back down or cut deals for half-measures when he believes those core principles would be sacrificed in the process.

In stark contrast, establishment Republicans have time and again the past several years said one thing publicly and then walked away from their podiums and done the exact opposite. They want to style themselves compromisers and deal-makers, but they’re actually a lot of enablers who let the Progressives take us off a cliff at 50 mph instead of 100 and call that a victory. I’m honestly fed up with the GOP establishment because I don’t believe it really holds to the principles it espouses, at least not when it really counts. They’re a lot of lions in talk but mice in a fight.

If I could summarize from my observation of Ted Cruz, I’d say his two main principles are that the United States government needs to operate within the constrains of its own Constitution, and that America needs to not be praising and promoting wickedness and ungodliness as a nation, either at home or abroad.

As American Christians, what’s not to love there? Those are two principles that ought not be compromised, and I for one am tired of seeing those two ideals cheapened, paid lip-service to in speeches and public events, but then wholly discarded whenever they get in the way of some short-term plan or deal.

What sort of nation is America becoming?

Progressives are so bold now as to run an out-and-out Socialist for President. Well at least they’re being honest! Neither Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton nor DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz can articulate the difference between a Democrat and a Socialist, so why shouldn’t the DNC run a Socialist like Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders? If the people at the top can’t tell you the difference and don’t care, how can the unwashed masses be expected to?

The sad and simple truth is obvious: America is being transformed more and more, little by little, into a wasteland of godlessness and amorality as we turn our backs on the God of our fathers – Yahweh God, the God of the Bible – in favor of total reliance on the State for the fulfillment and provision of all our needs and desires. America’s increasing hostility toward Christian faith being meaningfully spoken about or lived out in public is happening even as Statolatry is filling the vacuum. And this is not a coincidence. The de-Christianization of America is convenient for Progressives who are jealous for their false god of big government and Socialism. They want no gods before it, and that is why they feel so threatened by prayer in schools, Ten Commandments monuments at courthouses, or Christian bakers politely refusing to make cakes for lesbian weddings.

But America’s flirtation with Socialism right now is borne of historical ignorance. Look at Venezuela, Cuba, China, and the old Soviet Union for the three most obvious examples of that governing philosophy’s abysmal failures. Because of the stranglehold Progressives have on American public education, most Americans are barely even aware that these countries exist now or ever did, muchless how they fared before and after turning Socialist. For a quick test of this ignorance, ask American voters today to point to any of these countries on a map before you ask them about how well it worked out when each one embraced Socialism.

Never-you-mind the countless millions enslaved, impoverished, terrorized, and murdered by Socialism in the last century. Thanks to Post-Modernism, Socialism isn’t scary anymore because we don’t care about whether it’s true or good and we reject that there are any universal consequences for bad ideas like Socialism, despite the bountiful evidence to the contrary.

Tragically, truth doesn’t have to actually be true anymore. It just has to feel good. We have soundly rejected as a society the fundamental reality that whether something feels good in the short-term is wholly irrelevant to whether it is truly and universally good. Innumerable times in the annals of world history, missteps and gross miscalculations have been made when what felt good in the short-term was preferred blindly and stubbornly to what had been deemed truly and universally good in the long-term.

To most Americans, especially of the younger generations, Socialism is just another subjective term that can mean whatever you want it to mean so long as it gives you free stuff or warm and fuzzy feelings inside. “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet” in their minds, and the important thing is that Socialism promises goods and services we all want and which too many Americans believe they have an absolute right to be given regardless of personal effort.

Free college, free healthcare, a down-sized military, and appeasement of aggressive and nefarious powers abroad – without question, it all feels good in the short-term. Sooner or later, however, the bill comes due and has to be paid. Only the longer you put off and side-step the hard truth about the consequences, the more interest adds up and the greater the price will be in the end. In this way, it shouldn’t surprise us at all that America’s national debt has ballooned in the past decade, or that many Americans are in over their head when it comes to running up their credit cards, buying things they neither needed in the first place nor wanted in the end.

This is why what Ted Cruz has consistently said and done in the Senate and on the campaign trail for President resonates so well with me. He is the voice crying in the wilderness “Repent!” 

We should all be so uncompromising as Cruz when it comes to policies and laws and executive orders that establish a dangerous precedent, or which put at stake what has made America truly exceptional among the nations of the world, past and present. Ted Cruz is what real leadership looks like because real leadership isn’t about pandering cowardice, but about courage and conviction and character.

Why Christians Should Get Involved In Politics 2

Why Ted Cruz should not be President.

My conviction is that America is in very great trouble. Our future hangs in the balance right now. The future of my six children hangs in the balance. The soul of our once great country is all but lost if we elect another silver-tongued fox to guard the hen house.

If I can be honest with you, I’m struggling against coming to the fatalistic conclusion that America right now is too short-sighted, fickle, and self-indulgent to elect a man of principle like Ted Cruz. I’m trying to hold on to hope that we are not completely doomed.

Consider Dr. Ben Carson. Though that man’s calm, intelligent, and reasonable demeanor should have secured a position of greater honor among his rivals, it seems rather to have doomed his bid from the get-go. The good doctor would have made a very healthy choice for America in so many ways, but America has become one great big infant that prefers candy to soothe it’s sweet-tooth, and doesn’t want responsible adults telling it to eat its brussel sprouts before it can have dessert, or making it brush its teeth before bed.

Dr. Carson dropped out of the race last week after being dismissed by many on the Right and outright mocked and jeered by most on the Left. Other more compromised and less cogent candidates took all the air out of the room, and Dr. Carson was often left standing there with his hands patiently folded, waiting respectfully to be called on for a question. Dr. Carson is still an honorable man, but his ship has unfortunately sailed.

Senator Ted Cruz is still in it, however, and he might actually have a chance if Americans in general and Republicans in particular can stop being so frivolous, spineless, shallow, short-sighted, and self-indulgent.

The Alternatives To Ted Cruz

One of Cruz’ competitors for the GOP nomination is my former governor, Ohio’s John Kasich. He is the middle road. He’s tried to portray himself as the responsible choice by emphasizing the GOP establishment’s favored approach to governance of cutting deals and “reaching across the aisle” to get things done, even when that means selling America out time and again to Democrats, Progressives, Socialists, Statolators – whatever we’re calling them these days.

But John Kasich is the parent who wants to be his child’s friend. When it comes to political philosophy and rhetoric, Kasich is like the dad who buys birth control for his daughter in high school, or lets his underage son throw a big party with alcohol at his house; either way the rationale is that “They’re going to go do it anyway, but I’d rather they do it under my supervision.” Kasich, like the rest of the GOP establishment, has given up on the core principles and sees the irresponsible behavior of the Left as a foregone conclusion. Now he just wants to be liked and retain as much influence as possible through the storm, but he has no intention of trying to steer us away from the storm in the first place.

Similarly, Senator Marco Rubio is like the guy in college who just wants to be liked. He wants to be popular. He knows what he should be about, and he wants to be about it, but he’s afraid of being dismissed, marginalized, and left out if he really sticks to the core principles he was raised with. That is, assuming he really believes those core principles himself anymore. Now he’s not even sure what he believes in. He just needs to win now, even if that means acting like a late-night TV show host and making inappropriate, sophomoric jokes about Donald Trump’s body parts. Marco just wants to win right now, and he’ll figure out the details later. Rest assured that if he’s compromised in the past, he can be expected to compromise in the future.

Then there’s Trump the businessman. He is about himself, and it’s not entirely clear yet whether he is merely a caricature of what Democrats think Republicans will go for, a Trojan horse designed to let the Republican gates down once he’s inside. He may very well be sincere, but even if that’s the case he’s still a man of questionable character and integrity, and he is undeniably an egomaniac with a pronounced double-standard of what is fair to say about him versus what is okay to say about those he dislikes.

The GOP establishment really hates Donald Trump and is extremely embarrassed by him. Painting him as quite possibly a grave threat to national security and stability, there’s a lot of talk right now about the field trying to create a stalemate to prevent Trump from winning the Republican nomination outright. If the other candidates can prevent Donald Trump from getting the necessary majority of delegates in the primaries, it might lead to a brokered convention at which another more tasteful nominee can be selected by the elite puppet-masters at the top.

And if that happens, we may well see confirmation of news that Romney quietly reactivated his campaign right before the recent press conference at which he publicly attacked and mocked Trump. From where I sit, it seems obvious that the GOP is preparing to give the nomination to “he-just-looks-so-Presidential” Romney if they can somehow manage to wrestle it away from Trump.

Ted Cruz Should Be The Next President Regardless

But Ted Cruz Should Be The Next President.

Senator Ted Cruz has spoken out publicly against the plan to force a brokered convention, and with good reason. Ted Cruz being concerned about a brokered convention is justified on the lines he’s spelled out explicitly, of course. Cruz says the voters will angrily revolt at their votes being directly and intentionally cast aside by the powers-that-be. And that’s true. But there’s more to Cruz’s opposition to a brokered convention than that.

Cruz knows full-well how unlikely it is that he would come out of a brokered convention with the Republican party’s nomination. The establishment is being loud and obvious about their distaste for Donald J. Trump right now, yes. But that’s only because Trump is the front-runner and could very well win the nomination outright if they don’t concentrate their fire to stop him. But the Republican establishment doesn’t exactly love the Senator from Texas either, and a number of prominent voices have expressed as much or greater concern at the prospect of President Cruz as President Trump.

Why is that? Because Cruz is principled and has shown repeatedly and in no uncertain terms that he doesn’t compromise like they want a President to. The people in charge behind the scenes want to continue calling the shots from the safety of their current positions, and they don’t see Cruz as someone who is going to reliably give them what they want when it goes against the long-term well-being of the United States of America.

I’m sorry to see how many of my fellow Americans prefer a flatterer promising free candy, a back-room compromiser who can fudge on the core principles, a corrupt deal-maker who’s okay with people being taken advantage of unfairly, and a narcissistic entertainer who craves the power and attention of the spotlight. Such candidates are what our present America prefers because such candidates as these most accurately reflect what many Americans have themselves become and want to continue being.

Ted Cruz should not be President of the United States of America if this America cares more about vague and shallow things like “looking Presidential,” being handsome, and having a melodious voice. Cruz shouldn’t be President if this America doesn’t want a man of principle who believes in and is committed to the United States Constitution or the God of our fathers. But America should choose its better angels and Ted Cruz should be the next President. I believe strongly we should all pray that America becomes again the sort of country that formerly preferred men of character like Senator Cruz to flashy showmen and insincere flatterers.

Men who speak sense and stay true to their convictions no matter the personal cost or derision they face – such men have been absolutely vital in our nation’s past, but they are arguably needed even more urgently now than ever before as we stand at the edge of the cliff and look down into an abyss.

We are no longer the America we once were, to be sure. Yet I pray to God above that we some day become once again such a nation as would elect men like these to lead and represent us. Perhaps it is not yet too late to change course and choose what’s good for goodness’ sake, to stand on principle no matter the personal cost, and to elect a leader with godly character who honors God and speaks truth to power.

And that is why Ted Cruz should be the next President of the United States of America.

Follow Garrett Mullet:

Christian, husband to a darling wife, and father to seven children - I enjoy pipe-smoking, playing strategy games on my computer, listening to audio books, and writing. When I'm not asking you questions out loud, I'm endlessly asking myself silent questions in my head. I believe in God's grace, hard work, love, patience, contemplation, and courage.