Cruz’s debate win means it’s intervention time for Trump supporters

Are you a conservative? Are you rocking so much conservative street cred that you chose to stay home rather than vote for Republican nominees Mitt Romney in 2012 or John McCain in 2008 because you consider them undercover liberals, a couple of donkeys outfitted with fake trunks? Do you look at the big government left and the big government right and have trouble telling them apart? Do you currently support Donald Trump?

If you answered “yes” to the above questions, this intervention is for you.

{mosads}I don’t want to make you angry. I don’t want you to make you scream at me on Twitter. I don’t want to make you call Rush Limbaugh and tattle on me. I just want to show you how your support for Trump is affecting the people who care about you and what the consequences will be.

According to the Mayo Clinic, you can’t argue with facts or with my “emotional response to the problem,” so I’m going to try to do this using Mayo Clinic intervention-approved “I” statements.

I was upset and hurt when you supported Donald Trump because …

No real conservative has emerged from a Republican primary since Ronald Reagan. George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, George W. Bush, John McCain, Mitt Romney — let’s face it, the establishment has dominated the primary for a long time. No surprise. That’s whom it was invented to cater to.

But now — thanks to President Obama’s incompetence — the pendulum is swinging hard to the right. According to the Realclearpolitics average, only 43 percent of Americans approve of the job the president is doing. This is finally the time!

Right now, you, the conservative base of the Republican party, have the best candidate they’ve ever had. Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) is smart, he’s a great debater, he isn’t afraid to mention Jesus in his ads and he never backs down on his positions. He’s Voldemort-level character in the minds of most Democrats (Voldemort is the bad guy from that book you probably told your grandkids not to read. They read it anyway).

Cruz outshined every other candidate in last night’s debate. He was strong on foreign policy without promising to trample the Constitution. You love the Constitution! Remember?

Cruz schooled Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) on illegal immigration:

There was “a time for choosing,” as Reagan put it. Where there was a battle over amnesty and some chose, like Rubio, to stand with Obama and [Democratic New York Sen.] Chuck Schumer and support a massive amnesty plan. Others chose to stand with [Republican Alabama Sen.] Jeff Sessions and [Iowa Rep.] Steve King and the American people and secure the border.

He outlined conservative priorities:

Cutting taxes, cutting regulation, unleashing small businesses and rebuilding the military to defeat radical Islamic terrorism — our strategy is simple. We win, they lose. We’ve done it before and we can do it again.

Cruz is the first bona-fide conservative candidate I’ve seen in my lifetime who stands a chance of making it all the way to the White House. But, instead of seizing the opportunity to elect a true conservative, you have chosen to cast your primary vote for Trump.

I was upset and hurt when you supported Trump because …

Trump wants to grow the size of government, spend massive amounts of taxpayer money and trample the Constitution.

He uses Democratic Party talking points to attack true conservatives. Last week, he called Cruz a “maniac.” Last night, he walked it back, but only because it gave his conservative supporters a glimpse of who he really is.

Cruz believes what you believe. Trump pretends to believe some nasty caricature of what polling data told him you believe. 

I was upset and hurt when you supported Trump because …

The big-spending establishment Republicans failed us. The politically correct, identity-politics-obsessed bigger-spending liberals failed us. In 2016, America will finally be ready for a conservative voice, but that voice won’t be there. Instead, we’ll hear the voices of Trump and probably Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton arguing over whose version of single-payer universal healthcare is better. There will be no conservative voice and — ironically — it will be you who silenced it.

Zipperer is assistant professor of political science at Georgia Military College.