Trump, Cruz and Rubio are now in a nasty competition not only for the nomination of the Republican Party but, more importantly, for control of an insurgency reminiscent of 1964.
Trump, along with Cruz, represents an insurgency of a grassroots rejection of the economic internationalists, Wall Street bailout, deficit spending, neo-con foreign policy, free trade Washington leadership of the party that produced Dole, McCain, Romney and the presidencies of Bush 41 and 43. This rejection includes a coalition of states rights, balanced budget, anti-entitlement spending, limited government, social conservative, evangelical Christian, anti-neo-con foreign policy, isolationist voters who want America to focus on itself.
The insurgency was fostered and encouraged by the Republican establishment to be used as a weapon against Obama and a pathway to gain control of the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014.
This insurgency rejects any Republican who works with the Democratic Party and Obama on any level. It’s an insurgency of working class, non-college educated, low skill workers who believe that the policies of both parties over the past 50 years have taken away from them their country and their opportunities in a free nation. The insurgency is a reincarnation of the Nixon hard hats of 1972, the Reagan Democrats of 1980, the Buchannan voters of 1992 and those who opposed civil rights and affirmative action in the 1960s through the 1980s.
Trump joined the insurgency by questioning Obama’s birth and qualifications to attend law school, and as a result, he was elevated by Fox News to attack Obama. Trump has laid claim to the insurgency by attacking the record of Bush 43 regarding 9/11, his battle of words with the pope, attacking the hero status of McCain, calling the voters of Iowa stupid for believing Carson, advocating for the exclusion of Muslims because they are Muslims, calling for the building of a wall on the Mexican border and bragging that he will make Mexico pay for it, blaming the turmoil in the Middle East on the Iraq war that Bush started, accusing Bush of lying about WMD in Iraq and attacking Fox News and conservative commentators. Trump has tapped into the anger of the insurgency against both parties and the biased media, which includes Fox News.
Cruz is different. While Trump has built his reputation on being a businessman, an entertainer and a manipulator of media attention for decades, Cruz has built his reputation on being despised by the entire Senate. Cruz offers the insurgency years of criticizing the Republican leadership and publicly calling Senate Majority Leader McConnell a boldfaced liar.
Cruz, unlike Trump, offers an aggressive ideologically pure conservatism for the Republican nomination. Trump is neither an ideological conservative or traditional Republican. He is an insurgency populist that energizes and reflects the insurgency. Cruz is a candidate that offers an uncompromised social conservative alternative to the establishment and the democrats, the fulfillment of decades old desires. Trump represents at threat to that desire.
Although the battle between Trump and Cruz is over legitimacy in the eyes of the insurgency, they also represent a battle within the insurgency – a battle between those who want to purify the meaning of conservatism and the party and those who want to win the presidency.
This is where Rubio enters the battle. His candidacy asserts that Trump is a conman attempting to commandeer the insurgency, the party and the meaning of conservatism to the detriment of all three. But Rubio, unlike Cruz, has compromised credentials as a conservative and unlike Trump, does not have a presence that dominates media attention. What he offers to the insurgency is the assertion that he is more acceptable than Cruz. While Cruz and Trump are despised by the establishment, Rubio is not. Rubio offers himself as the best bridge between the insurgency and the establishment and as a candidate who is in compliance with the Buckley rule: chose the most conservative candidate that can win.
All three are making a claim to the insurgency, and the winner, as did Goldwater in 1964, will define the meaning of conservatism and the party regardless of the results in November 2016.
Dr. Arthur Garrison is an assistant professor of criminal justice at Kutztown University. This piece is the work of Dr. Garrison and does not reflect the opinions or Kutztown University or its faculty, staff, students or alumni.
