Harvey Kronberg gave political analysis of the effect Ted Cruz is having on national politics, appropriating ruling class mythology from the Democratic side.
His large-sized challenge was to create doubt in Texas about a very popular Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
Kronberg’s answer was a little convoluted, but given the circumstances, it was a pretty creative attempt to slow conservatives down.
Kronberg is addressing a need. The Democrats need to create some cultural momentum in Texas, since they are attempting to “turn Texas blue”. The problem is, the Democrat brand is 100% garbage in our state.
Kronberg employed a much more practical strategy – try to demotivate the Republican base, since the Democrats are hoping they can bring Chicago to Texas and voter-fraud their way to victory here. They want a replay of the 2012 national election – help the moderates win control in the GOP to depress GOP turnout, then sign up enough Democrats voters in key places, legally and illegally, to win seats.
Kronberg’s message was basically that Ted Cruz driving the Republican message nationally could backfire. Sure, it may not backfire in Texas, but Texans should temper their love for Cruz, because it could be a disaster for Republicans in purple and blue states.
And, oh yeah, says Kronberg, all of this pro-lifery is motivating pro-choice donors to give money to the turn Texas blue effort, so you better quit that too.
Thanks for the advice.
Actually, the big strokes of the entire American political struggle is bound up in this false narrative.
In truth, when conviction conservatives get momentum in our politics, they clear the board like Attila the Hun. We all know this – we were all there when it happened.
The problem is, it doesn’t happen very often. When it does, the establishment GOP is usually inclined to let it happen because the Democrats are getting a little too powerful.
See, if the Democrats get too powerful, the establishment GOP knows their donors will end up on the menu, so every now and then, they need the conservative special forces to come in a beat back the Ds.
The problem for the establishment Republicans is that the conservatives are too good – Reagan, Contract with America, Tea Party Tsunami. The fact is, when the conviction side of the party get the reins, the GOP wins huge.
And notice when all of these elections happened – in Carter’s re-election year, in Clinton’s first mid-term election, in Obama’s first mid-term election. All of these happened under Democrat control, with the exception of Reagan’s re-election, which the establishment was powerless to stop because Reagan had the ultimate bully pulpit.
In other words, the moderates need some conservative muscle, conservatives predictably dominate the election, making difficult the parasitic establishment GOP’s job of taking power back.
From an establishment GOP perspective, times like these – like after the Tea Party Tsunami of 2010 – are horrible. Suddenly the GOP starts dealing with the nation’s problems in earnest instead of securing more money and privilege for patrons, then giving the leftovers of their energy and political power to fixing real problems. For them it’s a big problem that must be remedied.
This “conservative problem” was remedied last time during the Presidential nomination process with lots and lots and lots of money and media assistance.
Moderate GOP candidates were allowed to say pretty conservative things to give Republican voters the impression that the GOP had learned its lesson. The message was that everyone is Tea Party now. The only question left is if the GOP voters were going to put the professionals in charge or the conviction amateurs. This was good framing by the GOP establishment.
It was a complete lie, of course. With the help of huge amounts of money and a FOX News rolling over, Romney used an air of inevitability to overcome the fact that nobody liked him. He moderated as soon as he won the nomination, showing the true colors that were never far from the surface, depressing the entire GOP with a reminder who he was.
It was a buyer’s remorse general election for Republicans.
The establishment thus wrestled back party control, and the Democrats turned what should have been the second installment of Tea Party 2010 into a modest win.
Then, Karl Rove and Co. began saying to everyone that the reason the GOP lost wasn’t that it ran a squishy moderate, but that the cycle was too conservative.
In truth, with Romney at the helm in the general election, 2012 wasn’t even in the same conservative galaxy as 2010 when the Democrat heads were put on spits nationwide. Rove and Co. were fighting for their lives. Either spin this into conservatives’ fault or go away.
With media cooperation, the establishment GOP has somewhat turned the tide in favor of this anti-conservative mythology – though it is exceedingly thin and fragile. Nobody trusts it.
Enter Ted Cruz reminding people at the gut level that the GOP special forces are winners, reminding people of the political potency of believing in something. This brings us back to Kronberg and “turn Texas Blue”.
With Ted Cruz keeping the impressive power of conservative conviction visible, “Turn Texas Blue” wants to damage him. However, trying to fight conservative power in Texas with a liberal message is a fool’s errand, and Kronberg knows it.
Instead, Kronberg channels Karl Rove and Co., knowing they are in conservatives’ heads a little bit from years of lies and manipulation.
Kronberg says that this dangerous conservative stuff – remember how it backfired in 2012(?) – could help Texas a little but at the cost of – THE WHOLE COUNTRY TURNING BLUER !!!!
This message doesn’t particularly resonate, and is not supposed to be swallowed whole, just like the establishment lie of the last presidential primary season, that every Republican was now a Tea Party Republican, was not meant to be swallowed whole. Both are meant to create enough doubt to take the edge off of conviction conservative intentions.
Kronberg also says a few things in his article that are just wrong. One is that it is unknown how a conviction conservative line will play in purple states. Wrong, Harvey. 2010. The big dog dominates every time it is let out of the cage.
Kronberg talks about the “fundamental takeaway of 2012” being that Hispanics and women decided battle ground states. This isn’t true either, at least not without being qualified nearly out of existence.
It is only true when the establishment GOP takes control of the political cycle because then Americans know everyone is looking for goodies and nobody is thinking about the long term.
At that point, yes, identity politics start to matter. At that point you’ve managed to get the electorate in a vain, selfish, fakey mood, and a vote can be successfully turned into a status symbol.
But make no mistake. When conviction conservatives own the political cycle all of that stuff is blown away like so much chaff.
This was a hard reality Kronberg is trying to avoid, but it won’t ultimately matter in Texas.
The Democrats’ one hope is voter fraud, but that will also be harder with Greg Abbott as Sherriff. This ain’t Chicago.