A message worth reading….
To the honorable Senator Cruz,
I write these words in great haste, since in a few short hours you will address the RNC. At that moment you will be handed a rare, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: you will have the chance to denounce Donald J. Trump, your party’s 2016 Presidential Nominee, as the disgrace to our Republic and to your party that you know him to be. I urge you to take it. I plead with you to take it. I beg you to take it. And, with what little eloquence I possess, I will try to persuade you to take it.
Senator, you have three choices: You may endorse Trump, you may try to neither endorse nor reject him, or you may reject him.
If you endorse him, then you will forever bear the stain and responsibility for that endorsement. If there is any sense left in America, any decency left in America, or even a decent sense of smell left in America, then Trump will be defeated in a spectacular land-slide. That is the best that you can hope for your party and for your subsequently tarnished reputation. Worse will be if he loses by a modest margin, for it will embolden many would-be demagogues to attempt what he nearly achieved. And why wouldn’t it? Then President H.R. Clinton would be no less compromised by her past in 2020 than Senator H.R. Clinton is today, in 2016. Some other charlatan will realize that if Trump had only been just slightly less stupid, slightly less narcissistic, and slightly more Presidential, then he would have been swept into office on a massive wave of support. Worst will be if he is elected, and may God forbid such a day to see light. You will then be responsible for having endorsed the ascension of America’s Nero. He will fiddle away with tweets while our country burns. He will loot it, and line his filthy pockets, while he drives it further into bankruptcy-just as he has done half a dozen times before. And when it is over he will brag that he came out richer.
Did President Bill Clinton’s Lewinski scandal embarrass you as an American and offend you as a Christian? Imagine President Trump. Did the Watergate scandal and the lying and cheating of President Richard Nixon leave an entire generation disillusioned and distrustful of our national institutions? Imagine President Trump. Are you ashamed of the racism of President Johnson? Observe Donald Trump. Did the Smoot-Hawley tariffs devastate international trade and help bring on the Great Depression? Imagine President Trump. Roosevelt’s Japanese internment camps? Imagine Trump. Bush’s lies about WMDs? Trump. The Alien and Sedition Acts? Trump. Kennedy’s Philandery? Trump. Teapot Dome? Trump. The worst of all our national disgraces and debacles will be trumped by Trump, excluding-one hopes- only slavery and the slaughter of Native Americans.
In the name of preventing more violence and the pain that its victims will endure, I will use violent words, though I know some find them painful to hear:
Donald Trump will rape America.
And then he will call her a slut.
Will you endorse him?
What if you try to avoid the stubby orange elephant in the stadium, and try to neither endorse nor reject? To your party’s die-hards and insiders you will still appear disloyal and uncooperative. To the rest of your country you will appear feckless. Everyone will know that you do not support him, they will suspect that secretly you loathe him, and they will still say that you put the good of your party before the good of your country, and the good of your political career before the good of your soul.
Let me ask you, is the good of the Republican party so great a thing, when it nominates Donald Trump to the highest office in the land? It must be rebuilt or it must be replaced, but there is precious little by which it can be redeemed. He would not disavow the leader of the Ku Klux Klan – so can you or your party afford not to disavow him?
As for your own political future, you have staked your reputation on being unwavering loyal to conservative principles. You present yourself as being truly a man of conviction, and not merely one more Washington actor playing the part of ‘Representative with scruples’. If that is true, then let it be true now, for there has never been a firmer moral ground for you to stand upon. If it is false, then begin, today, to make it true if you would seek to be better, or give the performance of a lifetime. You will have a starring role in the most dramatic political moment in decades.
Won’t it ruin your relationship with the Republican party? You are notoriously unpopular with your fellow Republicans; or so it is said. Why not be unpopular with them for good reason, and popular with the American people for better reason still? You can run as an independent for the rest of your days and never be in doubt about your senate seat. You might even still be nominated for President. It looks like they’ll nominate just about anybody these days.
But, Honorable Senator Cruz, I truly hope that you are the man you claim to be. That you do have principles and convictions.
Sir, I am not a Republican. But if you are a loyal Republican, then I bid you to save the reputation and future chances of your party. You will further divide it today, but you will preserve some part of it for tomorrow. Trump and ‘Trumpism’ are gangrenous, by blade or by blaze you must eliminate them. I have read that tonight you will be speaking about how conservativism can still have a bright future in America. Still is right- your party and, by extension, conservatism, have never been under a darker cloud of ignominy. If you want either to have a future, you must show the nation and show us dramatically that there are some Republicans and some so-called Conservatives who know the difference between right and wrong or between a statesman and a would-be tin-pot dictator. At a time when race relations are at their worst, you may, at least, reject one of their worst instigators.
Sir, I am not a Christian. But if you embrace the message of Christ, and if you believe there is a Maker who will one day hold you to account, then surely you must know that He will hold you to account for what you do tonight. Remember that no man can serve two masters. Is your Lord a God of Justice? Of Mercy? Of Wisdom? Of Truth? Of Righteousness? Or is your master vanity, avarice, illicit power and the gold-plated calf that has been erected as its idol and that stands – or slouches – as its most shocking symbol?
Sir, my Honorable Sir, I am no Senator, no Statesman. I have never so much as dabbled in politics. But I do consider myself a patriotic American, and as such I charge you – as an elected representative in our highest legislative body to defend the Constitution from a man who has not read it, cannot understand it, and will never respect it.
If you clearly, articulately, and unwaveringly explain why you oppose the most wretched man to ever stand for this great office it will be remembered for the rest of your life and political career. Even your opponents, who would concede you nothing good, will begrudgingly admit that you did no wrong when you undid Trump. Everyone else will admire it as an act of independence, of courage, and of principle.
God bless you, Senator Cruz. May you always choose what is right even if it is hard rather than what is easy even if it is wrong.
Sincerely,
Dr. Jason Rheins
To anyone else who may read this- I urge you to share it, retweet it, or whatever you can so that some leader who could yet make some difference might yet do some good.