Cruz has been exhibiting manners that are considered to be old-fashioned. Politeness, restraint, not getting in people’s faces and wagging a finger and shouting them down. He really has been engaged in what I believe are time-honored behavioral techniques that represent manners, breeding, sophistication, maturity, and all that. And doing so has forced Trump into a couple of major blunders here.
.. I can’t think of another word to describe other than just respectful and polite, treat your enemies with kindness, you know, turn the other cheek, all that sort of stuff. The virtues that are found in the Bible, for example. Cruz has been living them.
.. One of them is you never brag about anything. You never talk about how much money you have or don’t have. You never condemn anybody for not having enough or too much. You don’t go there. The old argument, turn the other cheek. If somebody throws something at you, don’t reduce yourself to their level. Turn the other cheek and smile. Basically this is where Cruz comes from. I think he’s extremely sophisticated, well-rounded, great character, proper virtues.
..
RUSH: Fox News Sunday, Donald Trump was on with Chris Wallace who said, “What do you think of Ted Cruz?”
TRUMP: I don’t think he has the right temperament. I don’t think he’s got the right judgment. You look at the way he’s dealt with the Senate where he goes in there like a… You know, frankly, like a little bit of a maniac. You’re never gonna get things done that way. You can’t walk into the Senate and scream and call people liars and not be able to cajole and get along with people. He’ll never get anything done, and that’s the problem with Ted.
RUSH: Whoa. Wait just a second here. Doesn’t that kind of describe the way Trump has been dealing with people he disagrees with? I mean, he’s been calling them stupid, he’s been calling them incompetent, he’s been saying you can’t get anything done with these people.
.. He’s come across as somebody who’s gonna beat somebody in negotiations, who’s gonna beat them down. He’s gonna tell them how it’s gonna be.
.. CALLER: Hi, Rush. Rush, just to give a little background here. Number one, I just thank the Lord Jesus Christ every day for you, Rush, ’cause you give me hope. I just want to give you a little background
.. CALLER: Here’s the way I look at it. It’s over for the United States if we don’t win this election. Trump can win. We have to win back our country. We cannot have another Romney. We cannot have another McCain. And I look at Ted Cruz as being almost like a Romney; he’s gonna lose.
.. RUSH: When you hear him jump on Cruz the same way Democrats in the media and the Republican establishment jumps on Cruz, that doesn’t raise a little red flag for you?
CALLER: He’s gotta do his strategy, okay? Trump has to do his strategy. I don’t know what his best strategy is. You see his polls going up, Rush, his numbers going up.
.. Trump doesn’t even believe that. Trump wants to steamroll people that stand in the way.
CALLER: Amen to that. God bless him for that.
..
RUSH: All right. When I hear any Republican, like the last one I heard saying it was Chris Christie, I cringe, and it was just a few short weeks ago. Are you tone deaf? Christie said,
“Look, I want the Democrats to know –” Well, what do you want the Democrats to know?CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: “I want them to know I will work with them. I can cross the aisle. And if they have good ideas, I’ll work with them.: And I said, what are you? This is John McCain. This is Mitt Romney. This is exactly how we lose. Our side does not want us working with the other side.
CALLER: — a lot of time. (crosstalk)
RUSH: They want us defeating the other side.
CALLER: Christie lost me the moment that he announced his candidacy by saying that we are not angry, but we are more disappointed by our politicians in Washington.
RUSH: Okay, fine, same thing.
CALLER: That isn’t the truth. We’re angry. We’re really angry about what’s happening to our country.
RUSH: Right. The only thing I’m saying here is that the way Trump went after Cruz, he’s free to go after him, don’t misunderstand. I mean, it’s a primary campaign. But to go after Cruz for not cooperating with the Democrats? Where has Trump said he’s going to? And if that’s what he’s gonna do, I damn well want to know it. You don’t want Christie to cooperate with Democrats. We want to beat ’em.
.. RUSH: Sounds exactly like what McCain would say of his opponent in the Republican primary, sounds exactly like what Romney would say. “I’m the guy that can go into the Senate and I can work with the Democrats and I can get along with ’em, and Ted can’t.” And my reaction, “I didn’t know you wanted to get along with the Democrats, Mr. Trump.” This is the first I’ve heard of that. That’s my only reaction. That’s not throwing Trump anywhere. I’m just reacting.
.. RUSH: Okay. That’s it. So he reads a story in the New York Times where Cruz is reported to have questioned his judgment. So Trump responds by questioning Cruz’s judgment. “I don’t think he’s got the right temperament. I don’t think he’s got the right judgment.” And I just… (sigh) Folks, it’s disappointing to hear Trump hit Cruz the same way that the Republican establishment hits Cruz and with the same things that the media hits Cruz and the Democrats do. You know, this is a big deal to me, this Republican belief that somehow the voters want a candidate who can compromise, who can make Washington work.
.. That’s the problem. We don’t want somebody who can walk into the Senate and compromise what we believe with these people. We want somebody walk in the Senate and defeat them, and ditto in the House, and ditto nationwide! And that’s what Trump has been expressing he can do, wants to do, and will do.
.. I mean, Cruz has taken it to the floor of the Senate and taken it to the Democrats on the Senate and done exactly what conservative voters claim they want to happen. But then to turn around and accuse him of not having temperament or judgment, not being able to work with these guys? It’s just disappointing, ’cause Trump’s not working with people. Trump’s campaign’s not based on his ability to compromise and work with people. Trump’s campaign’s based on the people currently doing things are goofs. They’re dumb. They’re not competent. We need smarter people in there doing these things.
.. He hasn’t made it a process by which the two parties compromise and work together. That’s for losers. That kind of talk and that kind of belief is for Republican losers. And I can name them for you: Bob Dole, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and anybody else in this field who talks about it. Anyway, that was one thing. Then the Trump hit on Scalia! I’m just telling you, they raise red flags for me, folks. That’s all. I think it’s unfortunate. (sigh) Antonin Scalia is the last, best hope of Supreme Court along with Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito.
..
The relationship that Trump has with his supporters, I don’t think the establishment has the slightest idea of understanding it, slightest ability to understand it.
They don’t have anybody who’s ever had that kind of relationship. It’s really true to point that out. And, as such, they don’t understand. They don’t understand that kind of loyalty. The loyalty they understand flows from dollars and cents, and to hell with cents. The kind of loyalty they understand flows with dollars. You get some dollars; in return you’re loyal to who gave them to you. And that’s not… Trump’s support is not based on money. It’s not based on quid pro quos. It’s totally based on ideas. It’s one of the things that scares everybody in the establishment about Trump’s campaign.
Rush: Trump’s Message Will Resonate
They’re all calling me rich. I’m really rich — I’ll show you here in a minute — and I’m proud of it.” No. Romney will go buy a station wagon, put the dog on the roof, and go on vacation. Trump’s out there flying his Boeing 757 with his name on it in 14-karat gold on the fuselage. He’s out bragging about everything he’s done because he’s proud of it.
He’s proud of his success, he’s proud of his achievements, and he wants people to know. He says he’s not bragging ’cause he doesn’t have to brag. He’s not ashamed of any of it and he doesn’t want to put on any airs and act like it was an accident or act like he doesn’t deserve it, because he does deserve it.
.. That’s the reaction a lot of people are gonna have because that’s the way they’ve been raised. “It’s unfair to beat anybody. It’s unfair. Competition is not necessary. Conflict resolution, that’s what we need. We need to compromise, get along, be bipartisan.” It’s gonna scare a lot of people. Beating the Chinese, beating the Japanese. These are people that are ignorant, who have no idea that what Trump says here is actually true. Make no mistake.
.. You don’t think the ChiComs consider us an enemy? They sure as heck do. You don’t think Putin considers us as an enemy? He sure as heck does. We’re an enemy simply because we’re the lone superpower anymore. It’s how you deal with that, that distinguishes you.
.. And plus he’s got the best of the best working for him. He’s got a brain trust that would rival any university and he’s got people that know how to get the job done. These are goal oriented people that work for him. And believe me, his ego is so big that he wants to just stand up there and say, “I told you so. I’ve been telling you for years.”
Rush Limbaugh Is Cheating on Conservatism With Donald Trump
All explicitly supported him in the name of conservatism.
Now Jeb Bush says that Republicans have to stop Trump lest conservatives lose control of the GOP. And Limbaugh is rejecting a Bush who is no less conservative than his brother, insisting that establishment guys like him want to destroy Trump out of disdainful elitism, even though Trump has been uniquely successful building a coalition out of the ostensibly conservative voters that constitute the GOP’s core.
.. But for now, Trump remains the man to beat, even halfway through January 2016, and that tells us something: A large part of the GOP base supports a man who has never been an ideological conservative, and is less conservative than many of his rivals, because ideological conservatism is relatively unimportant to it.
In this, they resemble their favorite radio host.
Without admitting it to himself, more fully than ever before in his long political-talk career, Limbaugh has abandoned conservatism as his lodestar. All else being equal, he still prefers the ideology. But it’s now negotiable. He’d rather have a non-conservative nominee who attacks and is loathed by the Republican establishment than a conservative who is conciliatory and appealing to moderates.
And Trump was uniquely suited to bring him to this point.
.. It’s no wonder that Limbaugh likes Trump. The talk-radio host also got fantastically rich selling ego, bombast, and brazenness to the masses, elitist tastemakers be damned. They’ve both been used by politicians who don’t, in truth, have much respect for them.
.. The DJs who sound so suave and confident were usually not seen that way when they were growing up. Even the most successful disc jockeys have usually had to move from city to city every few years. Limbaugh’s early life sounds as if it fit this pattern. Moreover, he was by objective standards a failure well into his thirties. He was fired from several DJ jobs, had two short and unsuccessful marriages, was chronically broke, and spent five long years as a public-relations man for the Kansas City Royals, fearing that his radio career was over.
.. Limbaugh could mock liberals and “feminizes” on the air, but in person he was (Dowd made clear) very eager to be liked.
.. his tremendous success on the radio didn’t translate into the sort of respect or influence or deference or validation that he had once imagined it would. I don’t think lack of pedigree is high on the list of reasons that Limbaugh is disliked so intensely by so many, but I can see why he would tell himself that story.
.. But rather than carry no water this cycle, Limbaugh is carrying a lot of it for Trump, as if seeking validation from him will go any better than it did when he sought it from Bushes.
.. And Limbaugh is right that Bush doesn’t dislike Trump due to a lack of conservatism. Bush dislikes Trump because he’s a crude, thrice-divorced bully with no sense of propriety or noblesse oblige. Trump is antithetical to Bush’s values and manners. As a kid, Barbara never would’ve allowed him to play with a boy like that!
.. But Limbaugh seemingly no longer believes in the Buckley rule. He no longer considers conservatism the most important factor in elections. The impulse to destroy the establishment drives him more than any constructive vision. If Limbaugh can antagonize the Bushes, the mainstream media, the Hollywood liberals and the GOP establishment all at once by aligning himself with a Sarah Palin or a Donald Trump, the opportunity is too good to pass up, because Limbaugh is less invested in winning some ideological battles than fighting a culture war... Like all successful reality TV, half the audience is watching in horror and the other half in aspiration.