Ted Cruz’s dream voice
At the tail end of this post from yesterday I wrote:
The GOP could have nominated Cruz this year, but it did not. Ooooooh, that awful voice, right?
I’ve never had a moment’s problem with Cruz’s voice—or his nose, or any other part of his physiognomy, for that matter. But a lot of people did, and some of them were conservatives who would ordinarily have been his natural supporters in terms of policy.
In that same post there was some more give and take on that, with commenter “vanderleun” offering this video. But I actually think the right video to watch is this one:
> I’ve never had a moment’s problem with Cruz’s voice
Sometimes he sounded unctuous and false, as if he were trying to come across as caring and sincere. Other times he sounded sharp and analytical, which I much preferred. I’ve found his written statements impressively clear and to the point.
Focusing on superficial nonsense like a nose or voice is why we wind up with Kardashian candidates. It’s not a surprise, not really, but we truly are stuck with the candidates that the dysfunctional American voters deserve.
There are a lot of problems with politics, but as more eloquent writers than I have noted, politics are downstream of culture, and our culture is deeply broken.
When I first saw Cruz appear walking onstage a CPAC this year, something rang horribly false.
Yet as the year progressed I didn’t notice it as much if at all.
Many others agreed with me when I brought it up.
Cruz still would have lost to Hillary most likely. But I suppose losing on actual values than with this charlatan would have been something.
Those who vote theatrics over substance reap theatrics and sh*t upon substance. Cruz was/is the real deal when it comes to adherence to the rule of law, aka the Constitution. Congratulations on your choices to support candidates who are not willing to put Federalism foremost. Time may forgive you, but not me. And that includes reluctant trumpsters.
holmes,
Cruz debating hrc would be a losing proposition?
my wife disliked Cruz, my theory was his fundamentalist speaking style.
Style over substance.. a losing proposition if one is a supporter of the rule of law. Or a means of supporting the rule of immoral men/women/the confused.
ISIS and Putin want a Trump presidency.
So I’m moving Donald’s odds up to 2:1 underdog.
We have YET to see the MSM unload on Trump.
That wave of sludge will occur after he’s the nominee, no doubt.
Neo:
Senator Ted Cruz and Jeh Johnson today.
http://www.redstate.com/absentee/2016/06/30/watch-ted-cruz-blasts-disdainful-dismissive-disinterested-jerk-jeh-johnson-radical-islam/
Tesh:
“politics are downstream of culture, and our culture is deeply broken”
So fix it: culture is a function of activism, a manufactured product of activists. The general will of We The People is – and has always been since our nation’s Founding – a function of activism.
Activism is the power of the people available to anyone for any cause, including conservatives. The activists currently manufacturing our “deeply broken” culture are just ordinary people, no better than you. The difference is their teamwork and effective social method.
Which is to say, allowing our culture to become “deeply broken” has been a deliberate collective choice by conservatives.
The activist game by which our nation was Founded in the 1st place is essentially competitive. It’s a team game. As such, the chief reason our culture is “deeply broken” is conservatives have consistently refused to play the social cultural/political game that’s necessary to reify their preferred social condition, while at the same insisting on passing the buck on activism to the GOP, despite the GOP’s social-political structural dependence on conservatives for necessary activism – with the consequence of ceding the social arena to any faction that deploys a minimum of competitively viable activism, even relatively crude ‘jayvee’ Left-mimicking Trump-front activists.
Of course, Cruz didn’t lose the 2016 GOP nomination to Trump because of his voice, anymore than Romney’s voice caused him to lose to Obama in the 2012 general election. Both GOP candidates lost because their core constituencies fell short in the activist game versus a candidate backed by a competitively viable social activist movement.
Blaming a visceral reaction to Cruz’s voice is just another way for conservatives to excuse their own irresponsible abstention of activism that’s chiefly responsible for Cruz’s loss to the Left-mimicking Trump-front alt-right activist Trump phenomenon, and rationalizing conservatives’ collective rejection of adopting the activist mindset and adapting the activist skillset that’s necessary for conservatives, including their favored electoral politicians, to compete in the activist game.
Eric:
Conservatives are at a huge, probably insurmountable disadvantage vs the left when it comes to this “activism” you preach constantly.
Most conservatives have many old-fashioned things that do not constrain the left: jobs that actually provide products and services people need/want, families they care about and take responsibility for, antiquated concepts they try to live by, like honor, integrity, ethics, principles. All these require a huge investment in time, focus and energy, leaving very little left with which to sustain and coordinate a prolonged activist campaign.
The left has built over time a vast network of interrelated fields and industries with jobs and career paths requiring little of what traditionalists would consider productive outputs, where the entire purpose is left-activism. Tens of thousands of fake 501(c)(3/4/27) “non-profits”, the whole educational establishment top-to-bottom, the entirety of the entertainment/cultural/”news” industries, much of the legal/judicial “profession”, and the vast governmental bureaucracies provide tens of millions of full-time, high paying occupations where little real “work” that benefits society as a whole is required. Thus, they are mostly full-time “left-activists” paid for by the taxes of non-leftists.
The left also considers honor, honesty, ethics, et al, weaknesses to be exploited in their enemies (see Alinsky, S.), and they have a single common unspoken goal, the Collective, that requires no central organization or leader to coordinate. They all know what to do without being told – use whatever level of power you possess, or can fool others into thinking you possess, to undermine and attack non-leftists.
At this point in time, what do you suggest we do to effectively take on that monstrous Leviathan?
I firmly believe it’s too late to stop the march to the Collective with non-lethal “activism”, and that it will require either a military coup or a massive, violent spontaneous uprising to dislodge it, which could be centuries in the future. After which, over time, a new group of “leaders” will arise and begin to accrete power to start the whole process again.
Even a Cruz/Fiorina administration, with a conservative, veto-proof Congress and a nine-Scalia SCOTUS would only provide a temporary slowdown. We’d have to violate every right in the constitution to ban leftist/Marxist ideas, permanently, and just be getting to 1984 by trying to stop others from taking us there.
Its why some blacks from the 70s called whites “honkey” for their nasal tones of a nose suited for cold weather..
My wife thought he looked like “Count Chocula”.
But she said she would vote for either him or Scott Walker. I think she won’t vote for any Presidential candidate this time around.
What geosktr said.
And, if you couldn’t support Cruz for the sound of his voice, you deserve the two crooks who made the finals.
So fix it: culture is a function of activism, a manufactured product of activists. The general will of We The People is — and has always been since our nation’s Founding — a function of activism.
Not quite. Making a sub culture in a mainstream culture is very difficult. Only Christianity and Islam has historically been successful in not being annihilated and in converting the majority culture to their own sub culture.
There are probably other examples, but to the West, those two are prominent.