Standing Up to a Bully

Mike Pence did a creditable job, but the evening belonged to Ted Cruz.

Was it good politics? We do not know. Did it begin or end Cruz’s career. We do not yet know. Many pundits think that they know the future. They do not.

The Trump campaign knew exactly what Cruz was going to say, but let him say it anyway. The New York delegation erupted in boos after it recognized that Cruz would not be endorsing the Donald. Rumor has it that they were told to do so.

One would have had more sympathy for New York Republicans if they could deliver the state for a Republican presidential candidate. They cannot. They know they cannot. The rest is bluster.

And, Trump himself, a man with little more to offer than his oversized persona, walked into the hall at the end of the Cruz speech, the better to steal his rival’s spotlight. After watching his children sit stone-faced during the Cruz speech, the arrival of the Donald suggested that he has no class, that he cannot resist the temptation to put other people down. He has gotten to where he is by mastering political theatre. By most indications he has thus far failed at organizing a political convention.

Under the circumstances, and faced with a man who lacks character, Cruz was facing a lose/lose proposition. If he had endorsed Trump he would have looked craven and weak. By not endorsing Trump, he looks courageous and dignified… but he risks being blamed for an eventual Trump loss. You and I know that if Trump loses the blame game will become a national Republican sport.

Since Trump was always known to be the one candidate against whom Hillary Clinton had a real chance at victory, those who voted for him might start considering how well they have placed their enthusiasm.

As for Cruz’s political calculus, time will tell. Cruz was bold and daring and courageous. He was appealing to more traditional, not populist, values. In calling for a return to freedom, he was reaching out to libertarians. As of now, approximately 10% of the electorate prefers the libertarian candidate.

And yet, people are saying, with considerable sound and fury, that Cruz did not fulfill his pledge to support the party’s candidate. In truth, John Kasich did not either. Jeb Bush did not either. Kasich did not even show up for a convention in his home state. Nor did anyone named Bush, or prior presidential candidates like Mitt Romney and John McCain.

Yesterday, John Kasich revealed that he had been approached by someone from the Trump campaign and asked to be the most powerful vice president in the nation’s history, in charge of both domestic and foreign policy. When Kasich asked what the president would be doing, the caller replied: making America great again.

Trump denied making the call. Trump, Jr. denied making the call. Trump, Jr. said that anyone who had said such a thing would be a meathead. Hmmm.

And yet, Kasich is not the type to make things up whole cloth. The bright side of the issue is that apparently Trump understands what many of us have been saying for months, that he will never be able to do the job of president. If so, he is showing more perspicacity than many of his supporters.

It is not the first time the meme has been floated, so I imagine that it is true.

As of now, Republicans are outraged that Cruz has not kept his pledge. And yet, keeping one’s word is not a moral absolute. If, in the time following the pledge, circumstances expose the bad character of one to whom you have made the pledge, you are relieved of your duty to keep your word. There are times when that one cannot be good to one’s word and save face at the same time.  You should not keep your word when you would be compromising your dignity and self-respect.

Let’s see: Trump called Cruz a liar, over and over again. He maligned and insulted Cruz’s wife. He defamed Cruz’s father by saying that he was part of the plot to assassinate President Kennedy. In so doing, he relieved Cruz of the obligation to keep his pledge. You are not obliged to keep a pledge to someone who treats you like garbage.

Had Cruz endorsed Trump, it would have counted as an abject capitulation, an appeasement and a submission. At a time when we have all come to see the Obama administration as supine and submissive on the world stage, Republican candidates should not set an example of caving in to a bully.

Writing in the London Telegraph Tim Stanley describes the Marco Rubio video:

He [Trump] once met a guy called Marco Rubio when running for the nomination – “little Marco”, he called him – and so Rubio was asked to give an endorsement, too. He did so via a video. So tawdry was Marco’s humiliation, so abject, that he decided it was best to deliver it as far away from the convention as possible.

If Cruz had endorsed Trump, you would have read the same lines, with his name put in place of Rubio's.

In purely psychological terms, it is bad to kowtow to a bully. It is bad to give the impression, in any way, that you accept the role that you have been cast in. People have been saying that Trump was magnanimous in giving Cruz a prime time speaking slot, but Trump also orchestrated the boos and tried to steal the stage by walking into the convention as Cruz closed his speech. If you think that Trump was not trying to rub his defeated rival’s face in the mud, you do not understand very much.

Supposedly, Trump is a master of reality television. The unfortunate thing is that nominating conventions are not reality television. By all indications he has failed at organizing the convention.

Who is at fault for the Cruz non-endorsement. Donald Trump, that's who. If Trump wanted an endorsement, he should have been magnanimous in victory and taken back the flood of insults that were directed against all of the candidates, but most viciously against Ted Cruz. He should have apologized. When he did not, Cruz could not have endorsed Trump without accepting the caricature that Trump had established.

If someone is bullying you, the one thing you cannot do is to give in and to accept the role he is casting you in.

When Trump did not take back his slanders, he left Cruz no other choice but to set an example by standing up to a bully. Others who have suffered the wrath of Trump did not show up. Others who made the pledge do not feel bound by it.

Of course, the New York delegation had been told to boo Ted Cruz. While many commentators have declared that Cruz put an end to his political career, the verdict is still out. Writing in the Weekly Standard, John McCormack offers a different angle:

But the booing and atrocious treatment Cruz and his wife received after the speech made Cruz's remarks seem downright courageous. CNN reported that Heidi Cruz had to be escorted out of the event by security, as one man screamed "Goldman Sachs!" in the investment manager's face.

That treatment, which Cruz has been receiving from Trump supporters as well as from establishment Republicans like John Boehner and Peter King, has put him in the position where going along with the majority feels like a capitulation. Keep in mind, the one person the Republican establishment did not want to see as the party standard bearer was not Donald Trump: it was Ted Cruz.

A political candidate needs to show that his opponent is very bad news, indeed. Obviously, it is not difficult to show that Hillary is a nightmare waiting to happen.

And yet, if the only rationale for the Trump candidacy is that he is not Hillary, it will not suffice. Trump remains the only Republican who almost certainly will not be able to beat Hillary. Not because anyone underestimates the horror of a Hillary presidency, but because there is no real rationale for the Trump candidacy. A presidential candidate has to show people why they should vote for him, not merely why they should not vote for the opposition.

So, last night Cruz delivered a speech that was more intelligent, more substantive, more conservative and better delivered than anything Trump will come up with. It did not set out an agenda but lay down the foundation for one. It was at times moving. It was at times inclusive.

Clearly, Cruz gave the speech he would have given had he been the nominee. He was trying to provoke a sense of regret at what could have been. He has been roundly criticized for failing to unite the party, but that role should fall to the nominee, not to those who lost out.

If the nominee does not reach out, does not apologize for the torrent of insults he shot out at all his serious opponents, he has relieved them of their obligation to keep their pledge. For all I know, Trump might have found a winning strategy. Many people do not understand that the inability to apologize is a sign of weakness, not strength. How many there are, we do not yet know.

[Addendum: from Gerald Seib's Twitter: Cruz to Texas delegation just now(at around 9:30 a.m.): "I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father."]

[Addendum 2. Cruz added this morning: “And that pledge was not a blanket commitment that if you go and slander and attack Heidi, that I’m going to nonetheless come like a servile puppy dog and say, ‘Thank you very much for maligning my wife and maligning my father.”]