Michael Van Der Galien has tried to understand why the Ted Cruz presidential candidacy announcement has set social media on its ear and advances a tentative theory. “But why are leftists’ heads exploding as well? I’ve got no doubt I know the answer: they fear him. Tremendously even. He is everything they oppose: a true, small-government conservative.”
If that were all Cruz were guilty of it wouldn’t be half bad. It’s far worse. His “Imagine” speech seemed calculated to ridicule every Leftist shibboleth with predictable effect. The Left lost no time characterizing him as a Christian bigot, a patriarchal supremacist, an uneducated, crazy, anti-poor, anti-abortion “uppity loudmouth” besides being that supreme abomination, a White Latino. If there’s some sacred cow in the Leftist canon Ted Cruz has left undefiled, he will soon enough defile it. That’s the plan.
Cruz was intentionally provocative because he intends to make the Left itself the main issue. People of all shapes and sizes were rising to their feet, clapping their hands raw and shouting themselves hoarse not because they necessarily agree with his policy positions, but because he was sticking it to the Man. He was knocking Gessler’s hat off the pole in the public square and the onlookers loved it.
In around the year 1307 the Habsburg overlords of the alps appointed a man called Gessler to rule over the villagers. Gessler hung his hat on a pole in the square and demanded that all the townsfolk bow before the hat.
We all know what happened next. A fellow named William Tell wandered into the village and did the unthinkable. He refused to bow before the hat.
On 18 November 1307, Tell visited Altdorf with his young son and passed by the hat, publicly refusing to bow to it, and so was arrested. Gessler—intrigued by Tell’s famed marksmanship, yet resentful of his defiance—devised a cruel punishment: Tell and his son would be executed, but he could redeem his life by shooting an apple off the head of his son, Walter, in a single attempt. Tell split the apple with a bolt from his crossbow.
William tell did something everyone thought was impossible. He resisted. The power of Ted Cruz’s speech stems from his refusal to bow before the liberal hat. If you were to re-write his speech into its essentials it might sound like this. “Imagine if we could tell all the stuffed shirts in the media to buzz off. Imagine if we could tell the busybodies to butt out our lives. Imagine if we could actually tell the IRS we want to keep our money. Imagine if we could the tell the NSA you need a warrant to tap my phone. Imagine if we didn’t have to feel guilty of being Americans. Imagine that we could call Islamic terrorism by its name.”
Of course Cruz put it more cannily then that, but that was the message. We can continue.
“But you don’t have to imagine because I’m doing it right now. I am standing right here, committing what is accounted political suicide saying every damned thing you ever felt like saying but couldn’t. I’m on YouTube giving every bit of lip you were afraid to give for fear you might lose your job. Do you see that hat over there my friend? I’m going to knock it down. All I am asking you to do is take out your cellphones and punch in this number and by that ever so negligible act, join in the fray!”
Yippee. There’s not a few who would rise to their feet under the sting of that message and bang their palms together not out of the love of Ted Cruz, but under the impetus of shame. Shame that it took so long for someone to say what was obvious; shame that they hadn’t said it themselves.
The intellectual establishment has predictably taken the bait. Bearded so openly, they have sneered and they snorted and cast aspersions down like ordure from their high towers upon the rabble beneath. That’s exactly the expected response and they’ve only confirmed Cruz’s message. By and by the worst of these taunts will be withdrawn by canny media analysts who understand the trap as laid, but the damage is done. Ted Cruz wanted the aristocracy to show its upturned face and that, it has done.
Cruz may not become president of the United States. He may never even win the nomination of the Republican party. But if anyone wants to know why there was such a wave of emotion in response to his incendiary pronouncements, it is the resentment of the serfs, who dream of being serfs no more. The liberals aren’t fighting Cruz. They’re fighting their whole sordid history of high handed deception.
[jwplayer mediaid=”42489″]
Imagine.
Recently purchased by readers:
Not What They Had in Mind: A History of Policies that Produced the Financial Crisis of 2008
The Fall of Paris: The Siege and the Commune 1870-71
The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land
Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms: Journeys Into the Disappearing Religions of the Middle East
The King in Love: Edward VII’s Mistresses
Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism [Kindle Edition]
Possibly worth buying:
The Map of Heaven [Kindle Edition]
Logitech M570 Wireless Trackball Mouse
External laptop battery
Did you know that you can purchase some of these books and pamphlets by Richard Fernandez and share them with you friends? They will receive a link in their email and it will automatically give them access to a Kindle reader on their smartphone, computer or even as a web-readable document.
The War of the Words for $3.99, Understanding the crisis of the early 21st century in terms of information corruption in the financial, security and political spheres
Rebranding Christianity for $3.99, or why the truth shall make you free
The Three Conjectures at Amazon Kindle for $1.99, reflections on terrorism and the nuclear age
Storming the Castle at Amazon Kindle for $3.99, why government should get small
No Way In at Amazon Kindle $8.95, print $9.99. Fiction. A flight into peril, flashbacks to underground action.
Storm Over the South China Sea $0.99, how China is restarting history in the Pacific
Tip Jar or Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the Belmont Club
Join the conversation as a VIP Member