Trump vs Cruz: Transactional Inside-Outsiderism
What fresh hell/word salad is this?!! Bear with me a second and then treat this as a political open thread.
Trump and Cruz are each in their ways walking talking self contradictory oxymorons. Each purports to be the outsider speaking for the common man yet each came straight to the top through insider channels. Trump manages to be a nouveau riche guy born to money, itself a contradiction, who brags how that money allowed him to outright buy politicians in both parties. Cruz is a guy actually born to the working class who managed to punch every ticket through Ivy League to Harvard Law to Supreme Court Clerk to Texas Solicitor General to U.S. Senator by his early 40’s. And married a Wall Street banker to boot.
Yet though both on any conventional metric are consummate insiders by CV they have convincingly sold themselves as outsiders. How? Because each man is fundamentally, deeply, at basis, bedrock (how low can Bruce go?) transactional in ways that cross cut their undoubted establishment ties and path. Cruz by all evidence convinced himself or was convinced by his evangelical father that he was destined to be Leader of the Free World. Except maybe without the “Free” part. As such you can see every single career decision. however seemingly at the heart of the establishmen.t as actually being inside-out. He has punched every inside ticket on his way to being the outside leader, the path being subordinate to the goal.
And of course Trump as a person and a politician cannot be separated from his book The Art of the Deal, for him it is transactional turtles all the way down, except that unlike Cruz’s desire to be King of the World, and a world that has some relation to the one we live in, Trump seems to dream of being the High Trump of Trumpistan, “First, Last and Penultimate of His Name”
Transactional. Taking the Inside path to Outsiderism to the Mountain Top. Same shit different day.
(Some people would apply this same analysis to Hilary. Well the shoe fits too closely for this Yellow Dog Dem’s comfort, but run free my Droogs)
I”ve resigned myself to the conclusion that whichever one wins (including madame secretary) you’re going to want to go long drone warfare subcontractors.
They’re all batshit bullish on the power of blowing people into pink mist.
Word.
And more to amiably address your post, I’d suggest that both Trump and Cruz represent something this 55 year old DFH never thought he’d see. The return of John Birch to the (inside of!) modern GOP.
Nixon tried to purge the loons but apparently it didn’t take.
I see Cruz as the evangelical version of Jeff Bezos and Trump as the loud, blustery, bully version. All three present different versions of megalomania. (I’ve written enough about Amazon on postal issues to realize that Bezos scares the shit out of me)
AS – I think you’ve seen the future although something tells me that with both Trump and Cruz you might actually see some serious pushback from the military. True believers (Cruz) and bullies (Trump) get sniffed out by the military culture which can get pretty damned passive aggressive on carrying out plans they don’t like. Both Trump and Cruz will have problems making the bureaucracies work for them and could very well end up as isolated Captain Queeg or Citizen Kane types.
The one thing you can count on is that there will be nearly as many endless Congressional investigations as drone attacks for all three potential administrations.
I’ll cast my ballot for Bernie although his age worries me for 2020 which will be a very big election in terms of taking back some state governments (Census year and reapportionment). I imagine I will likely be voting reluctantly for HC come general election time. I will hold my nose with SCOTUS on the line. I’m in North Carolina which may be in play so sitting it out or going all Naderite is not an option.
AS,
Clinton’s comments on Iran are ridiculous, as they are fallacious. Iran’s main achievement in terror is scaring Sunni royalty and Israel. Iran since 1980 has tossed the CIA’s Shah out with his royalist version of gestapo. And fought a high casualty war with the US’ surrogate aka Saddam Hussein.
That blood thirsty Clinton dragon lady would war on 120M Shiites to please royals and Netanyahu.
MJ,
I do not see any US military “leader” [in the pentagon an oxymoron] who would jeopardize his future role at a drone plant to tilt with Clinton or any of the other pentagon trough fillers with more trillions for war profiteers’ skim.
The excuse to fill their trough does not cause any angst among the careerists!