The best explanation of Trump vs. Cruz I’ve ever seen
Here it is. It’s written by Mark Krikorian, and it crystallizes something that I’ve been struggling to articulate about what’s going on at the top of the Republican race this election cycle, at least for some conservative voters (hardly all).
I wrote “Trump vs. Cruz” in the title of this post. But that’s not really accurate. It’s more “Trump voters vs. Cruz voters.” Or better yet, “Trump voters vs. the Republican establishment and Obama, and what those voters see as the possible remedy” vs. “Cruz voters vs. the Republican establishment and Obama, and what those voters see as the possible remedy.”
That’s too big a mouthful. But here’s Krikorian to make it more clear:
The fight…seems more like the Republican nomination fight is between the anti-establishment Cruz and the anti-system Trump. In other words, Cruz believes our constitutional arrangements are basically sound but that the leadership class that manages those arrangements has got to go. Trump, on the other hand, seems to reject those arrangements altogether…Trump’s support comes from people who have given up on our existing “regime,” in the political science sense of the word…[C]onstitutionalism “has been found lacking” ”“ Obama, and the Supreme Court, have pursued extra-constitutional (i.e., illegal) tactics and prevailed. Repeatedly. On momentous issues that immediately affect every American.
So the Left has ignored the strictures of the Constitution, and succeeded in imposing its will on the rest of the country. It’s no surprise that a large share of that rest of the country is going to conclude that adhering to the Constitution’s strictures is a form of unilateral disarmament, like following Marquis of Queensbury rules in a knife fight.
…if we don’t want the November election to be between two post-constitutionalists, where we vote simply on which Duce will rule over us for the next four years, we need to persuade first GOP primary voters, then the broader electorate, why the preservation of our republican norms is vital to America’s liberty, independence, and prosperity. We can’t do that simply by pointing out what a nitwit Trump is.
There’s one more paragraph, but it contains further description of the situation. Leaving aside the question of whether Trump is a “nitwit” (I don’t think he is), it doesn’t offer a suggestion on how to perform that act of persuasion. In fact, teaching “why the preservation of our republican norms is vital to America’s liberty, independence, and prosperity” has traditionally been the function of the educational system in our republic, but that system has also failed, and way too many people in “the broader electorate” haven’t a clue what Krikorian is talking about or why it’s important. If the people get the government they deserve, I suppose it would be a sort of justice if we end up “voting simply on which Duce will rule over us.”
Given what i have read and so on, his is part of the narative and fits in, but its not accuate.. oh well… but its a good sell cause it is what fits if you dont dig an aweful lot, and forget that he is telling you what two other people think, and has no actual way of knowing that – which is why you can find 20 stories that contradict what the author thinks they think, not to mention ripe for projecting. then similar will resonate with similar, we are made to follow.
“. . . how to perform that act of persuasion.”
Since “that act” has been performed before, it may be good to begin looking at that prior performance. Off hand, I’d suggest to begin with Jimmy Madison’s Federalist 10 and Federalist 51, because these two essays best embody (so far as I know) the crystallization of the theory arguing and promoting the form of the regime (over the personages administering) it for the sake of justice. Not a few Americans, however, may be in need of reflection on the meaning of justice, a knowledge or familiarity with which concept Madison takes more or less for granted in his essays. But who said it would be easy? Wasn’t then, won’t be now.
I’m pretty sure I wrote here how I see Trump supporters (not counting actual nitwits) as tending to be the right-of-center’s version of Cloward Pivens – they seem to believe that if the system is destroyed, the system they prefer will magically emerge from the ruins. Thus, if we can just hurry up and ruin what’s left, we can move on into a freshly minted Republic.
The problem is, that isn’t going to happen. History is not littered with other examples of lasting nations with at least a significant chunk of the principles that made America what it is. That’s because it can only happen in a rare moment with the right people calling the shots, the right population, and the right motivations and cultural values.
Very little of Gen Y even considers classic American values to be a good thing, while most of my peers (we, the forgotten few of Gen X) are mainly concerned with trying to support kids, support parents and still hold onto enough that we’re not living our last years out of a garbage can. This is not the population which is going to embrace classic constitutional values and revival. Destroying what’s left will simply replace what we have with who knows what – probably Venezuela, in English, if we let the Dems back in.
for to remedy my buggered parens, and therefore hopefully toward clarity — the intended parens should read: (over the personages administering it)
Another factor
Perhaps the reason fewer people are voting Republican is simply because there are fewer Republicans who are still alive.
The Greatest Generation, which weathered the Great Depression and then fought and won World War II, is all but gone. In 2004, there were still more than 4 million surviving World War II veterans, according to the National World War II Museum. By 2012, that number had shrunk to little more than a million. By 2016, it will be far less than a million.
If you include their spouses at roughly the same count, bringing the total to about 8 or 9 million, that means in the past 2 election cycles, more than 6 million have died. By 2016, nearly all of them will have died.
According to research by Gallup, what was left of the Greatest Generation was roughly split politically and ideologically as recently as 2013 – 47 percent Republican or lean-Republican versus 46 percent Democrat or lean-Democrat. There, the death rate would have hurt each party roughly equally.
As for the Silent Generation – those born in between the Greatest Generation and Baby Boomers – it is 50 percent to 43 percent in favor of Republicans, including leaners. As that generation now dies off, it will disproportionately hurt Republicans.
In the meantime, their replacements in the voting age population at the younger end of the spectrum, have unquestionably skewed Democrat. Millennials, those born between 1980 and 1996, register 53 percent are Democrat or lean-Democrat compared to 35 percent who are Republican or lean-Republican.
As for Baby Boomers, they are roughly split, 46 percent to 44 percent in favor of Democrats, including leaners.
Meaning, quite literally, the Republican Party is dying off, and unless something changes rather quickly, the GOP may never have as many votes as it does right now.
http://conservativerepublicannews.com/2015/12/21/are-republicans-dying-off/
Kyndyll G:
I’ve written a lot about that. Don’t have time to find all the posts now, but here’s one of them.
I’ve, for months, said that Trump will make the trains run on time.
And I’ve heard “conservatives” say that they are just fine with that. “We need our own strongman”.
I reply that the constitution is antithetical to that point of view.
“We’re long past that. The Constitution is dead.”
From people complaining that Obama violates the Constitution.
Trump supporters are not anti-Constitution. They realize it will take a strong character to right the ship. It has become life or death. Everyone elected seems to succumb to corruption a la Paul Ryan. This is why Trump keeps his distance from the establishment right now. He knows people are fed up.
“Destroying what’s left will simply replace what we have with who knows what — probably Venezuela, in English, if we let the Dems back in.”
Come to think of it, if we let Dems back in, there’s no particular guarantee that our version of Venezuela will even be conducted in English.
David Goldman (Spengler) has a great article @ PJMedia on Cruz v neocons – like Rubio. And how it can be used against Clinton. He makes some great points.
Trump’s campaign was ignited when he came out with his immigration policy. I don’t see what is unconstitutional about protecting our borders and deporting illegal immigrants. What is unconstitutional is not enforcing our existing laws. Were they strictly enforced, we wouldn’t have the problems we now have on the immigration front.
Congress has already passed legislation to build a fence. The problem is the executive branch has refused to build more than a few token fences.
Trump wants to halt Muslim immigration until the authorities can figure out how to vet them, to ensure we aren’t importing jihadists. The President has the constitutional authority to do that and past Presidents have done that. I think this is the relevant statute.
Trump wants to simplify the tax code.. Nothing unconstitutional about that. Politicians would hate that, for the reasons that Peter Schweizer details in his book Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets. Schweizer fully documents his case; he is not some wild-eyed conspiracy theorist. Fixing a broken tax system is not unconstitutional. Ridding it of the loopholes and exemptions that enrich special interests would seem to me to be in line with the Equal Protection clause.
Krikorian writes:
Trump’s supporters have given up on the current political class, not on the constitution.
They might stomach Cruz but they will likely stay home or protest vote if any other establishment politician gets the nod.
The world order is unraveling everywhere: in Europe, USA, Russia, Middle East and in lots of other countries. Nobody can anymore maintain the existing rules of the game. Something big is going to happen, and perspectives are dim. Universal voting rights bring to power only first-rate demagogues, nowhere we can hope for decent people keep upper hand and reason prevail over ignorance and ideologically driven insanity of masses. My best hope is rather gloom: mild forms of fascism will prevail over the horrible ones, with restoration of national states with closed borders and traditional morals, expulsion of Muslim invaders and stopping insanity of mass immigration, restriction of democracy by sane and humane autocratic rulers.
Trump’s support is not monolithic. His supporters are mainly anti-RINO. Some undoubtedly do view the Constitution as a ‘dead letter’ but IMO many do not.
But that begs the question; is our Constitutional form of governance essentially on life support?
It’s a given that our Constitutional system cannot work without a majority of its constituent’s allegiance.
Democrat politicians, leftist/liberal activists, the left’s financiers, the mass media, and the great majority of our educational system have little to no allegiance to the U.S. Constitution. Liberals are willfully blind to the inherent contradictions of the policies they support. They approve of the Constitution, when it supports the agenda that they embrace, otherwise they have little use for it.
The vast majority of Republican politicians, their primary financiers and a majority of the business establishment pay lip service to the Constitution but personal aggrandizement is where their true allegiance lies.
Which leaves perhaps 35% of the American public retaining its allegiance to the Constitution and the principles upon which it is founded.
If that is an accurate assessment, what basis is there for imagining that the 35% are going to persuade the other 65% that they are in the wrong? And, however dressed up, the bottom line is that they are at best, profoundly mistaken. And embarked upon a path that leads to the tyranny of the few over everyone else…
A huge disadvantage of American political culture before British and some other European ones is the lack of nobility (aristocracy) which was responsible for preservation of traditional norms and values. Universal franchise can not substitute for this void when masses lost their moral compass and religious conscience. What Founding Fathers held for granted (moral and religious population) as the sole foundation of constitutional republic, simply is not there anymore.
I am seeing Trump on the 29th. I hope Powerline will publish it.
Neo noted correctly that teaching why the preservation of our republican norms is vital to America’s liberty, independence, and prosperity has traditionally been the function of the educational system in our republic, but “that system has . . . failed.”
Kirkorian said Trump is “anti-system.” That’s not a bug; it’s a feature.
It is pure common sense to be against a system which has failed, when as G. Britain noted, there is no chance of resurrecting it. Trump supporters have common sense.
Democrats, not so much.
Neo: “it doesn’t offer a suggestion on how to perform that act of persuasion”
The answer is, of course, and always has been, activism. The kind the Tea Party movement started with correctly, but then mistakenly gave up for a blinkered focus on electoral politics at the point they had started making vital progress with participatory politics.
sdferr refers to the Federalist Papers. Recall that the founding fathers didn’t just write tracts and pose for historic portraiture for reprinting in textbooks and preservation in national galleries, though that has been part of their long-term success.
The Founders were first and foremost groundbreaking Marxist-method activists.
Their tracts and portraits were originally activist applications. They won a nation via activist persuasion that brought about a paradigm-shifting revolution in America that inspired similarly ambitious if ideologically dissimilar (French, Communist, etc) revolutions around the world.
“How to perform that act of persuasion”?
There is plenty of material for how. Just ask Steve Beren or David Horowitz.
In addition to backtracking the Tea Party movement to before they were distracted off course as a social cultural/political activist movement by their blinkered focus on electoral politics, you can start with this reference:
http://doingdemocracy.com/ .
The prescriptive “how” is obvious and readily available. It always has been.
Rather, the real question is ‘will’. Will mainstream conservatives collectively choose to commit to the Marxist-method activism of the founding fathers that was necessary to win the American nation, and equally necessary to preserve it.
CPT Rusty:
“Trump supporters have common sense. Democrats, not so much.”
Trump supporters ensure Hillary wins at the polls. You will get your erosion of the constitution, but not in the direction you want and meanwhile, conservatism becomes dead until the next revolution.
Eric: When The Federalist Papers were written, the franchise was restricted to those who had skin in the game. Today’s freeloaders are not listening.
I’m a Cruz supporter, but I’m going to paste in this tweet every chance I get:
Jeff @EmpireOfJeff tweets:
“You “conservative” “pundits” still don’t get it: Trump isn’t our candidate. He’s our murder weapon. And the GOP is our victim. We good, now?
12:25 PM – 14 Aug 2015 “
I do not understand where the notion that Trump is anti-Constitutional is coming from — unless it’s the GOPe.
The fella that’s off the reservation is our boy Barry.
Going back to the Constitution would be a revolution to the Democrat machine — Chicago on the Potomac.
It’s obvious that the USSC has been ideologically poisoned.
As for Muslims, Islam, jihad, … I’m with Geller.
Our elites are living in a fantasy.
The real problem with Muslim immigration is Muslims.
Today’s immigrants want Shariah.
Shariah is treason to our Constitution.
Islam has to be excluded from First Amendment protection — as it’s not a religion in the Western sense.
It’s a theocracy driven creed — and anti liberal to its core.
The first wave of Muslim immigrants were largely fleeing Islam. They were Muslim in name only.
Their cohort — its history — is entirely misleading as to what we can expect out of Muslim invaders at this time.
This wave is loaded with True Believers.
HRC is totally in the tank for Islam.
Barry is a Muslim. He’s exposed himself time and time again.
ONLY a practicing Muslim would use the Islamist ‘gang sign’ to indicate his allegiance to that creed, that radical cause.
Yet, that’s exactly what Barry did during a photo op in Africa — while standing with African Muslims and African Christians.
The Muslims were grinning from ear to ear.
The Christians were stunned, saddened, terrified.
And they were all national leaders.
Yet this obvious reality is taboo in the Press.
The fellow that speaks truthfully, frankly — is demonized.
The treasonous liar is given assent.
I have a lifelong policy of not declaring defeat when I didn’t give it my best effort. That happens rather often, since I’m an habitual procrastinator. I feel bad when it happens, but the impetus is to give it my best effort next time.
I can’t declare that the Constitution failed, because nobody was upholding it during Obama’s term. It wasn’t the Constitution that failed, it was us.
Maybe people doubt Trump’s bona fides regarding his stance toward the Constitution because for one thing, he doesn’t have much to say about it, and then every now and again Trump expresses admiration for things like wolfing up private property for private purposes through eminent domain, or pining for the single-payer health care system in Canada, or attacks Ted Cruz on grounds that Cruz doesn’t favor corn ethanol subsides, or doesn’t favor affirmative action in University admissions, and more as well? These sorts of opinions just doesn’t appear to comport with classical republicanism as embodied in the framing. Ya think?
blert: “Shariah is treason to our Constitution.
Islam has to be excluded from First Amendment protection – as it’s not a religion in the Western sense.
It’s a theocracy driven creed – and anti liberal to its core.”
Preach it brother!
Eric: I thought you had dropped the Marxist descriptor. I would highly recommend that Spengler article @ PJMedia, to you in particular. OIF will never be rehabilitated in the eyes of over half the country. And it’s yesterday’s news for most people.
I didn’t say Trump was anti-constitution, only that as a “strongman” he may not feel compelled to abide by it.
Others (commenters, radio hosts) then told me they were OK with that.
Trump is a progressive riding the right to power.
sdferr +1.
Matt_SE,
Correct, the Constitution has not failed us, it is our brothers and sisters who have proven unworthy of it. A society at liberty to make wise or unwise choices, must live with the consequence.
Harry @ 7:09,
If nominated, will you vote for Trump? Or will you abstain and ensure Hillary’s election?
Perhaps you accept the view that Trump cannot be elected. In a time of peace that would almost certainly be true. But ISIS is here and in their heart of hearts, the public knows it. As evidenced by the panic that just swept through Disney World when people heard reports of shots being fired at the resort.
From now till Nov. every Muslim terror attack is going to raise Trump’s poll numbers.
Do you honestly think that a Pres. Rubio will begin to hinder the left’s machinations? Do you actually imagine that Ryan et al will support a Pres. Cruz?
The simple and deeply unpalatable truth is that the leadership of both parties is rotten to the core…
What can be done with a rotten apple?
“What can be done with a rotten apple?”
Speaking as a farm boy, the answer is easy, rotten apples are fed to the hogs. They eat everything, including any bones, as may need desposal.
A Pres. Trump will NOT be able to ignore the Constitution. As neither the Democrats nor the RINO GOP would hesitate to impeach him. Remember, he’s a RICH, WHITE, MALE…
In fact, if nominated and if the GOP can pull a ‘Reagan’ on him and get a RINO VP (ala “Voodoo economics” “read my lips” Bush Sr.) as his running mate, they’ll seize any excuse to impeach Trump.
I’m certainly doubtful of Trump’s bonifides and I’d greatly prefer Cruz but there’s no need to exagerate Trump’s negatives. Nor is it useful to ignore the very great service his bombast is providing this country in exposing previously forbidden topics, which just happen to be the greatest immediate threats this country faces.
parker,
Touche! If we can then make Islamic terrorists last meal ham & bacon, I’m fully onboard.
GB: I think there is a threat that a Pres Trump could be co-opted by congress and Republican advisers.
Before we get all excited about Trump as a despot…
Do keep in mind that ALL of the worst despots in history were business and artistic failures.
Backstabbing politics was the ONLY place where they had ‘talent.’
Barry Soetoro fits THAT profile to a Tee.
1) Bitterly unhappy childhood with ‘daddy issues.’
2) Fantastic self-conceit.
3) Failure at everything — outside of politics.
Barry didn’t even manage to hang on to his law license.
Likewise Michelle, HRC, and Bill Clinton ALL had troubles hanging onto or losing their law licenses.
%%%%
The fellow Trump most closely resembles — is President Andrew Jackson.
Which goes a LONG, long, ways towards explaining why the GOPe hates his guts.
Wall Street wants Jeb or Hillary. Either one would be a perfect tool.
Of course, Jeb as a nominee must make Hillary president.
He couldn’t defeat a traffic ticket.
FDR escaped any label of despotism on account of popularity, the same popularity which enabled the topsy-turvying of the unique American understanding of modern natural right republicanism, to be replaced by Roosevelt’s positive rights scheme, the which we witness in power today and headed for collapse within the near term horizon. No one, however, would mistake Trump for the vigorous ideologue Roosevelt, since Trump likely couldn’t be bothered to put out the effort at such calculation. Master marketer, sure. Political thinker beyond his own time of office? Probably not.
KLSmith,
That certainly a possibility. I don’t think it a possibility with Cruz. But with Rubio it is a certainty.
I do hate being a pessimist, but the US’s future is as a banana republic, and likely one that violently tears itself apart as the remaining true adults realize far too late what has happened to the country are forced to literally fight for their’s and their children’s survival.
Yancey Ward: the future won’t be as rosey as that. A fight implies that there is a war that could be won. The US will not die with a bang but with a whimper. A majority of slow fat Idiocrats full on government cheese, free TV, and all the pot they can smoke – it will be their idea of freedom.
Yancy Ward, you are right about the country being torn apart.
This will happen with or without Trump. It is the reason I’m backing the failing long shot candidacy of Ben Carson, because I believe he is the only person capable of binding the wounds created by 8 years of Obama. Rather than a typical banana republic though, I believe it will be all out civil war in a country armed to the teeth.
It would be a triumph for Trump to motivate the Congress to be Constitutional, would it not? I do not think it possible, though. My hope is Trump would do a flurry of Exec. Orders, some a la Cruz, cancelling Obama’s and doing more. See ya in court! Not much the Congress can do about that, even with rigged impeachment. A ponderous process.
If there is a rigged impeachment and conviction, that serves only to toss some earth onto America’s coffin. I am not at all sure the impeachment process would slow Trump, who is a “Damn the torpedos!” kind of guy, which I regard as a feature.
The Congress that would not impeach Barack Hussein would impeach the Donald? Just proof the Nation is already dead.
The Other Chuck:
Civil War? Who fighting whom?
The citizens fighting the US Army and National Guard? Or the Armed Forces fracturing into two camps?
Or the Armed Forces in a coup d’ etat against the Progs?
Kindly expand your thoughts.
There’s a whole lot of projection in these articles, and more than a little bit of fear on the part of Obama’s enablers. They were perfectly fine turning the Oval Office into a dictator’s throne room when it was their anointed dictator sitting on the throne. Now they are starting to realize that having fundamentally changed the nature of the Presidency, they now are going to likely have to hand it over to their worst enemy.
Obama has to run the Presidency like a dictatorship. He has had no choice. He has no political skills. He has no friends in Congress. He doesn’t talk to Congressmen. He has no negotiating skills, so in lieu of all of that he had Harry Reid effectively shut down the Senate so he wouldn’t have to deal with Congress at all. He relies on his managerial powers to simply order the bureaucracy to do what he wants, regardless of the letter of the law. So much of what he has done is simply completely unlawful and subject to immediate change by the incoming President, who only has to order his new cabinet to enforce the law as written.
Why would Trump govern like that? He’s the one who HAS the negotiating and political skills. A President Trump isn’t going to ignore Congress. I expect him to be deeply engaged with Congress because he’s going to want to push legislation that actually enacts his agenda into law.
> It’s no surprise that a large share of that rest of the country
> is going to conclude that adhering to the Constitution’s
> strictures is a form of unilateral disarmament,
Adhering to the Constitution’s strictures is the quickest way to dismantle the leftist government. So much of what the Federal Government is doing lies outside the Constitutions’ strictures that a President willing to use that as justification could easily dismantle giant swaths of the regulatory state in broad sweeps. Whether Trump wants to do that, I don’t know. But the notion of Trump as wanna-be dictator is leftist projection. That’s not who he is. That isn’t where his strengths lie and that’s not how I expect him to act if elected.
I think everyone here will be interested in this. Greenfield does his usual brilliant analysis of this very subject. http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2015/12/trump-dictatorship-and-competing-with.html?m=1
Frog, I’m no seer. Civil war can be sectarian as in Iraq and Syria with multiple factions fighting each other as well as the nominal governments. What happens here depends on how bad civil order breaks down, who wields executive power, how defanged and demoralized Obama has made the military, and how desperate and threatened the populace.
I’ts no secret that the current administration is preparing for urban unrest and apparently believes it will come from ex-military and the right. I’m not so sure that is where it will start. They’ve almost issued an invitation to terrorists by leaving the southern border wide open. I’ts like they are setting up for conditions that would necessitate martial law. Then what, suspension of habeas corpus and posse comitatus, federalizing local police, emergency executive powers, fema camps, all the nightmare imaginings many on the far right have predicted?
A breakdown in civil order could happen almost overnight. Thanks to what I believe is a stupid and shortsighted corporate policy of just in time inventory, we are extremely vulnerable to food delivery disruption and shortages. Add in the very likely prospect of bio terrorism specifically targeting our food supply, and we are a ripe target. Other targets could include our power grid and communications. Think Katrina magnified a thousand.
Whatever the cause, desperate people with guns, millions of guns and many millions of rounds of ammunition, will not go quietly into that gentle night.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Dylan Thomas
If/when America implodes DC will not be able to contain the implosion. Currently DC holds absolute power because the metro areas are governed by leftists empowered by their manufactured victim tribes, the msm, and the crony capitalists (wizards behind the curtain) which hold sway at the ballot box. But the center will not hold when TSHTF. The tribes will turn against one another, the msm will be powerless, and the crony capitalists will flee to their off shore sancturaies. It will be dog eat dog and even the dumbest among us will realize it is government against all, every man-woman-child for themselves.
Due to the spamminator, i have to post this in pieces…
it doesnt get through…
we are heading for a world war at the same time we have a civl war.. this is how the US loses in the near future as we cant make anything, the men are no longer competent, the women will fight, and the public is mostly on psychotropics… wheee… [just think of what the ladies march through the culture as the army of the dems who is the front of the administrative state has used them to make changes regardless of constitution]
cant post… forget it..
let the dog and pony show of distraction continue
A Trump supporter of my acquaintance recently told me that he did not intend to be the most honorable man in the camps. I’ll say I agree with him that the camps are coming, unless something is done, and I don’t intend to go to the camps either. I don;t think Trump is the solution, but I agree with his diagnosis of the problem.
I think of a Constitution as like the operating system of a computer. There are hacks in it, and once it’s hacked, the hacker controls it. With an operating system, hopefully you get security updates so that you are only vulnerable for a short time. But patching a Constituion on the fly is hard. The hacks in our have been found, and the hackers have gained control. That’s what Alinskyism is, really. The science of hacking governmental systems.
Cruz, if he is elected, will try to address the problem by Constitutional means. He will fail, because the Congressional Republicans are deeply corrupt and incompetent (Paul Ryan), and because he will not have a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. Even if he did have such a majority, there will always be Republican Senators for sale who will scupper anything useful he might do.
I do not see trump as being either a competent or successful dictator, but I believe that a dictatorship is our only hope if we are not end up in the camps, or dispossessed and attaindered as class enemies.