Over the last week, the rumors have been flying that the three Republican candidates who have little to no chance of winning the nomination – Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and John Kasich – have basically entered into a secret agreement to keep Donald Trump from cinching the delegates. As weirdly undemocratic as that alliance might be, the three candidates should be more ashamed of how they attacked Trump following the cancellation of his Chicago rally on Friday.
This was an excellent chance for these candidates to put aside their political ambitions (however small they are at this point) and unite against the liberal, social-justice savagery we witnessed in Chi-town. Instead, they went out in front of cameras and decided they would play Democrats for the day.
In Rolling Meadows, Illinois, Cruz said, “Thirty people were arrested today over violence and then the rally was cancelled, protesters took violence into their own hands. Any campaign that disrespects the voters and a campaign that encourages violence and facing allegations against members of the press, you create an environment that encourages this.”
Kasich released a statement saying “the seeds of division that Donald Trump has been sowing this whole campaign finally bore fruit, and it was ugly.”
Rubio said, “There is only one candidate that has violence at his events. I think potentially some of the rhetoric he has used contributed to this environment and it’s disturbing.”
Well, Marco, the reason there’s no violence at your events is because no one cares about your events. In fact, here’s a bet: If you took a poll of every moron protesting in Chicago on Friday night, less than 10% of them could even tell you the name of a single other Republican candidate. These weren’t legitimate political protesters; these were mouth-breathing simpletons who have been watching the video of a guy punching a protester on constant loop for the last 48 hours.
This is a sad day for America, and an even sadder day for Cruz supporters. Intelligent, fiercely conservative, and seemingly principled, Cruz would have made a fine Republican president. But a candidate can’t be judged solely on his record, nor on his ability to debate well. A candidate’s true colors come out when something like this happens – when there’s a conflict between the right thing and the right thing for your campaign. And as Cruz may be soon to discover, there actually was no conflict.
These candidates seem to think there’s some appetite among conservative voters for a candidate who will defend Black Lives Matter, defend Islam, and defend illegal immigration. National Review subscribers may dig that crap, but that’s about as far as it goes.
We might just look back at this weekend as the point where the wheels truly and completely came off the “establishment” cart. If Trump wasn’t unstoppable before, he is now.
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