Near-Perfect Vision

I have a theory. I think Ted Cruz has 2020 vision. He wants to run for president in 2020. He can see the Republican Party coming apart this year, after November, and splitting into two factions. The hate-filled 2016 Trumpists will congeal into a pile of dung. Let’s call them Trump Dumps. The rest of the party will become the Christian Republicans. What he can’t see is the traditional Republicans taking control of the party of Lincoln and showing the door to people like Cruz who believe the universe is 6,000 years old, reject science and insist on hijacking a woman’s body in the doctor’s office.

That’s right, the evangelicals who joined the party in 1980––when Ronald Reagan gave a welcoming nod to their extreme religious beliefs––will feel betrayed by the practical conservative mainstream establishment. Those centered, rational Republicans will put the abortion fight on the back burner, give up the unending dead-end battle against the Clintons and focus on achievable goals like trimming the size of government and lowering taxes for the middle class. They will re-make the party more in the mold of Dwight Eisenhower rather than Rush Limbaugh. Back in the day, they were called moderate Republicans. I remember them well; I once was one.