With Cheese

That would be revenge of course.

Chris Cillizza (who is an out-of-touch Billionaire bootlicking idiot as almost all of the Villagers are) illuminates the Beltway consensus in Pravda–

Sen. Ted Cruz risked his political career Wednesday night when he pointedly decided against endorsing Donald Trump from the stage of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

It was a stunning thing to witness. The man who finished second to Trump in the primary race, the man everyone expected to, eventually, fall in line behind Trump, the party’s nominee, steadfastly refusing to do so — with the biggest possible spotlight shining on him.
…
At the heart of Cruz’s gamble is, of course, the idea that Trump will lose the general election to Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president. But that’s not all of it. Cruz is also banking on the idea that Trump will lose in such a way that it will cause a post-election reckoning by the Republican Party who supported him. That the GOP will wake from the fever dream of this election and ask itself, “What the heck were we thinking?” That, post-election, the thinness of Trump’s affiliation with the Republican Party and loose commitment to conservative principles will be exposed in a way it simply has not been in the campaign to date.

And then — and this is very, very important to Cruz’s massive gamble — that the politicians who stood with Trump will be tainted by their association with Trump heading into 2020. That includes House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R)— all former Trump rivals who, eventually and in their own ways, found a way to get behind the real estate mogul.

They will be on one side of the party. Cruz, he hopes, will be on the other, the one principled man left in the GOP. The man who stood up to the bully in the bully’s back yard. “This is about principles and ideals,” Cruz told the Texas delegation Thursday morning. “This is about standing for what we believe in.”

Principle vs. politics. Standing firm vs. giving in.

That is how Cruz has to hope people come to view what he did Wednesday night. The alternative — a selfish act by a man who has always cared more about himself than his party — is certain doom for Cruz’s political future on the national stage.

Charlie Pierce on the other hand gives credit where due-

“What does it say,” Cruz told them, “when you stand up and say, ‘Vote your conscience,’ and rabid supporters of our nominee begin screaming, ‘What a horrible thing to say!’ [Ed. Note: That was a very polite translation of what the folks in the New York delegation were screaming at him.] If we can’t make the case to the American people that voting for our party’s nominee is consistent with voting your conscience, is consistent with defending freedom and defending the Constitution, then we are not going to win and we would not deserve to win. That’s how you win elections.”

He would not say if he would vote for the party’s nominee. (“I will tell you, I’m not voting for Hillary.”) He told them that, after He, Trump had insulted Heidi Cruz, and tried to make Rafael Cruz an accessory before the fact in the murder of John F. Kennedy, that it had become personal. He told the Texans, he had no intention of coming to the Trump campaign, hat in hand, like “a servile puppy dog.” He resisted to the last the notion that an extraordinarily non-binding pledge—which, later, Trump campaign director Paul Manafort groaningly tried to make equivalent to the Constitution—bound him to a guy who glibly connected his father to Lee Harvey Oswald.

In his answer to the last question, from a Hispanic woman who wanted to know whether, as a man of his word, he should have honored the pledge. “I have to say that it is not about Donald Trump. It is not about Ted Cruz, or Heidi Cruz, or Rafael Cruz. It is about the United States of America.” A “U-S-A” chant broke out.

“Ma’am,” Cruz answered, “I agree with you emphatically. It is about the United States. Every day in the Senate, I have spent every waking moment fighting for this country, fighting for you, fighting to honor the promises I made. By the way, there’s a reason why others don’t—because of the reaction in Washington when you get screamed and hollered down when you honor your commitments. That’s what I did in my speech last night.
“Last night, what I laid out was not a speech that was focused on me. Last night was a speech that was focused entirely on the United States of America, on a path forward. Our country is on the edge of precipice. We are on the verge of losing the greatest country in the history of the earth and my soul cries at where this country is, at what we’re doing to the freedom of our kids and grandkids. And what I said was the only path to saving this country. And it is not just blindly chanting a name and yelling down dissenters. That is not the way. I believe in free speech.

“By the way, can anyone imagine our nominee standing in front of voters answering questions like this? I’m going to answer the questions even from the fellas who yell and scream because, you know why? Because you have a right under the First Amendment to your opinions. If we don’t honor freedom and if we don’t honor the Constitution, if we can’t convince the American people that our candidate can be trusted to defend the Constitution, then we will lose and we will deserve to lose. My speech last night was entirely about this country and how we save this country, and I will continue to tell the truth whether or not it is politically helpful or politically convenient. I wasn’t elected to do the convenient thing. I was elected to do the right thing, each and every day.”

I wish he would stop this stubborn defense of principle and this stubborn attachment he has to his own independence, because his politics are still hopelessly retrograde, and his interpretation of American political history still leaves you stranded about half-past the Articles of Confederation, and I don’t want to admire him as much as I do right now.

In this case I’m afraid I agree with the strutting popinjay of the Beltway. Ted Cruz is no Jeremy Corbyn and this was in fact “a selfish (and desperate) act by a man who has always cared more about himself than his party.” It was all about 2020 and Ted Cruz is no less dangerous that The Donald and Pence. I hope when we get there we’ll be presented with better choices.