Dakota Beacon

I’m not here to rail against Paul Ryan, RINO-in-Chief, and his treasonous sellout, nor his brothers in this crime (including Kevin Cramer and Collin Peterson and their cohorts in the Senate).  There are many already calling for them all to be primaried for it (I could only add “jailed” to their demand).  And don’t waste your time or mine defending this monster because they tucked some benefits for oil into it.  (Would it have been okay to sell oil to Hitler during WWII?  Arguably, the damage to America with this is even greater.)

What I intend to do here is to use this experience as an example of why we must finally tear ourselves out of the trance we’ve been in as frustrated Conservatives with the infatuation with master illusionist Donald Trump.  Sure, he lit into Paul Ryan:  “If anyone needed more evidence of why the American people are suffering at the hands of their government, look no further than the budget deal announced by Speaker Ryan,” he charged.  “In order to avoid a government shutdown, a cowardly threat from an incompetent president, the elected Republicans in Congress threw in the towel and showed absolutely no budget discipline,” he raged on.  He had even more to say about Congress not being able to “help itself in bending to every whim of special interests.”  Brave words, indeed, Mr. Trump!  You got every heart beating to the Stars and Stripes Forever with that one.

But here’s the problem.   And it applies pretty much across the boards with Trump.  He ping-pongs every which way, depending on what his finger in the air tells him is the current mood of the people.  Nothing he says as anything whatsoever to do with principles.  Even in his debate statement against nation-building, he had already thought of a dozen other ways to spend the same amount of money - schools, hospitals (nationalizing them, perhaps?), roads.  Not a word about alleviating the shocking national debt, nor of giving the money back to the over-burdened taxpayers of America.  No.  Just spending it on domestic government programs, which means “special interests” would have a field day.  Just the milieu in which Trump has been thriving throughout his career.  So we know he likes the idea of spending our money.  But what else has he said?

Remember the part about Ryan selling us out?  Let’s listen once more: “In order to avoid a government shutdown, a cowardly threat from an incompetent president, the elected Republicans in Congress threw in the towel and showed absolutely no budget discipline.”  Well, who would argue with him on that?  Apparently only Donald, himself, for mere days before, he had this to say: “I don’t think he [Ted Cruz] has the right temperament.  I don’t think he’s got the right judgment.”  Trump continued:  “You look at the way he’s dealt with the Senate, where he goes in there like a . . . maniac.  You’re never going to get things done that way.”  He went on, citing Cruz’s “unwillingness to cajole and get along with people”, which makes him a supposedly flawed candidate. “He’ll never get anything done, and that’s the problem with Ted.”  This, of course, came on the heels of Cruz’s strong showing in Iowa polls, displacing him.  Obviously this was a fit of pique over that, revealing a bit of temperament disorder of his own.

Are we supposed to excuse this kind of talk because he was frustrated at not being on top somewhere?  Or should we see his judgment as flawed?  I supposed we could say he suddenly saw the light, as he’s done on so many other issues - abortion, immigration, gun rights, health care (? - we’re not sure what his stand is on this one yet), wind power development, the border (on which he’ll build a fence with a “golden door”), on his past political allegiances.  We could, but we shouldn’t, and I, for one, hope we don’t.  Because we need to understand that we aren’t in trouble because of personalities or temperaments or any other transient causes.  We are in trouble - real trouble, serious trouble (dare I use the over-worked “existential” trouble?) because we have looked to personalities, charisma and showmanship instead of to principles.

Ted Cruz has demonstrated his principles reliably and consistently, even if his enemies and some casual part-time politicians without records of their own, like Trump, call him a “maniac” and criticize him because he’ll “never get anything done”.  Well, last week we saw Congress and the Senate “get things done”.  How’s that working?

So, just how does Trump get things done?  By buying . . . and selling.  He doesn’t deny it.  “You better believe it,” he asserted when he was confronted by Rand Paul.  He openly admits he buys favors from politicians.  Oh, my God!  Does this mean he’s a “special interest”?  He criticizes the Clinton Foundation’s shady operations but he donated $100,000.00 to it.  He has bragged about contributing to Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.  In 2006, he contributed $25,000.00 to Congressional and Senatorial Democrat campaigns.  (In all fairness, he also contributed $1,000.00 to their Republican counterparts.  Evidently he thought he’d get more out of the Democrats.)  He tells us this is how HE “gets along”.  He gets along with Chicago’s Mayor Rahm Emanuel, or did recently.  He bought that good will with a cool $50,000.00 contribution to Emanuel, as recently as 2010.  He told Sean Hannity, “So what am I going to do - contribute to Republicans?  One thing: I’m not stupid.  Am I going to contribute to Republicans for my whole life when they get heat when they run against some Democrat and the most they can get is 1 percent of the vote?”  That quote was in 2011.  Not exactly ancient history.  And, as Winston Churchill once said, “We’ve already established what you are.”

Today he’s ripping Hillary.  Well, Donald Trump helped to put her in power and keep her there.  He paid her off for influence and helped her win elections.  And we’re supposed to say, “Well, that’s just business.  Nothing to see here.”  We must deduce from this that he has no principles and his values are his opportunities of the moment, not the public’s good.

When Trump says Hillary Clinton is a “mess” and has been for “years”, remember who donated to and promoted her candidacy.  Remember he wanted her at his wedding extravaganza enough to buy her attendance with campaign cash.  When he attacks Ted Cruz one day for not “getting things done”  by “cajoling” and cooperating with liberals, like night follows day, he’ll attack those who do “get along” when he senses the public is angered by it.

Donald Trump is no one’s “best hope”.  He’s no Conservative.  He has no principles.  He does only one thing.  He makes deals.  We are suffering today because the elites in Washington have been making deals like these at our expense.  So long, in fact, that we are in danger of finally accepting this sorry state of affairs as “normal”, to the extent that Donald Trump thinks (perhaps justifiably) that we’ll accept his lame excuses, that we’ll overlook a total lack of principle and character because we have done so for years.  

The thing about principles is that they are firm and sturdy things.  They’re not flexible.  They don’t depend on which way the wind blows, who can do you the most good or get you the best poll numbers in tomorrow's headlines.  It means standing up and saying maybe it’s time to shut down a runaway government and bring it under control while we still can, rather than “getting along” or “getting things done”.  

The only real hope for America is to forget sound bytes, forget showmanship and above all, forget the “art of the deal”.  What we need is someone whose principles are unshakable and guide his actions and his words.  Ted Cruz has done this.  Not this week, not a couple of months ago.  Throughout his career, Cruz has been willing to stand up against Washington when they would betray us even if he must stand alone.  This is what principle and character look like.  This is what we need in a president.  And we desperately need it now.

Trump is an illusionist.  Cruz is a courageous fighter for American principles.