Why Some Republican Elites Are Suddenly Saying They’d Prefer Donald Trump Over Ted Cruz
Andrew Prokop, Vox: Why some Republican elites are suddenly saying they’d prefer Donald Trump over Ted Cruz
[T]he Trump/Cruz choice sheds a great deal of light on just what the Republican Party is. Because, as conceptualized in a great piece by the New York Times’s Jonathan Martin, it seems to have resulted in a serious split.
Among intellectuals, commentators, and party actors devoted to advancing “conservatism” as an ideological project, Martin writes, Cruz seems vastly preferable to Trump. But for the more mercenary and pragmatic business and lobbying establishment, Trump seems like someone they could do business with, and Cruz seems like a dangerously inflexible ideologue.
Only in our wildest dreams could the choice facing the GOP have come down to either Trump or Cruz. But that is what happens when you build your party on stoking fear and hate instead of addressing the needs of the people.