Curb Your Authoritarianism? The 2016 Conventional Wisdom Thread (Elections, Part 6)

Disappointing. Where's the vitriol? Where's the incendiary rabble-rousing? Where's Newt? I think he spent himself in 2012

more like bae nordlinger

i love the CNN sidebar doubling as a cruz-o-meter:

8 min
Gingrich ad libs, goes after Cruz

17 min
Ark. delegate on Cruz: "He's finished"

21 min
Delegate: Cruz's "conscience dog whistle" is "disappointing"

27 min
Heidi Cruz heckled, gets escorted out

29 min
Arena screens flickering during Eric Trump speech

35 min
Trump enters hall near end of Cruz speech

35 min
Cruz doesn't endorse Trump. Huge boos

36 min
Delegates chant, "say his name" as Cruz speaks

40 min
Cruz: "Vote your conscience." Gets booed

44 min
Cruz backs plan to build border wall

48 min
Cruz: "Gay or straight, Bill of Rights protects ... all of us"

53 min
Watch: Cruz congratulates Trump

59 min
Huge applause for Ted Cruz

I honestly don't understand why the audience is so livid with Cruz. Unless they assumed the widely-discussed non-endorsement was just a ruse and he'd dramatically endorse tonight. This wasn't a surprise!

I think they just don't like him and got impatient.

Golly gee, it's Paul Ryan again.

Paul Ryan is like the host of some Christian reality show.

man there still aren't that many people in this arena, are there?

It's late! They're tired!

Jay Nordlinger
✔
@jaynordlinger

I wonder if Mike Pence will take the opportunity to defend religious liberty. #BetterLateThanNever

I thought Ryan still hasn't technically endorsed either--that he parsed it with some kind of vote-for-Trump/not-officially-endorsing statement.

oh cool Reagan

Strange pivot from Reagan to "my wonderful wife Karen Pence."

xp @clemenza yeah, but it wasn't just a matter of cruz not endorsing, he did everything he could to emphasize he wasn't endorsing short of explicitly saying it. There was a very pretty obvious element of "fuck you" in his speech, i.e. having this big pause at the point where he could have endorsed, and then just pushing forward while mocking the NY delegation.

9 min
Official yelled at Cruz, had to be restrained

10 min
Convention-goer calls Cruz a disgrace to his face

I was just listening, not watching--I think I missed some of the nuances. Good for Cruz then, I was totally in favor of sabotage tonight.

Has Pence officially endorsed? It'd be nice if splits hairs like Ryan has.

yeah, I feel like if I hadn't watched it I may not have fully realized what cruz was doing

katy tur from nbc on twitter: "Trump campaign expected Cruz to talk for 10 minutes. Cruz' prepared remarks went 9 minutes. He spoke for 23 minutes."

Lol http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/438145/ted-cruz-booed-stage-cleveland

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/21/us/politics/donald-trump-issues.html

He even called into question whether, as president, he would automatically extend the security guarantees that give the 28 members of NATO the assurance that the full force of the United States military has their back.

For example, asked about Russia’s threatening activities that have unnerved the small Baltic States that are the most recent entrants into NATO, Mr. Trump said that if Russia attacked them, he would decide whether to come to their aid only after reviewing whether those nations “have fulfilled their obligations to us.”

The basic question (Harry Enten): "Can someone explain to me why the Trump people allowed Cruz to talk tonight? They knew Cruz wasn’t going to endorse Trump. They — and we — had Cruz’s prepared remarks. Did Trump’s people think that Cruz was going to have a change of heart? I’m not sure why the Trump campaign would bank on that. There are Cruz’s ideological disagreements with Trump, but it’s also worth remembering that Trump intimated that Cruz’s father was involved in the John F. Kennedy assassination and attacked Cruz’s wife.

So, why give Cruz a prime-time speaking slot?"

^^^

the obvious answer is "everyone in Trump's operation is clownshoes nonsense"

yeah they pretty clearly just don't know what they're doing

The lock her up shit from the crowd is disturbing

Whenever Jay Roach gets to filming his requisite 2016 election movie, Will Ferrell should be a lock to play Mike Pence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwF-Lib-lxI

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cn2x6ysVMAAxIjG.jpg

https://crikey-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2016/07/bob-dole-melania-trump.png

omg that image is seriously making me nauseous

love the smile at the end of that first line… 'that's right'

i know it's already been speculated on to dire effect in this thread but i'm pretty sure donald and melania don't exactly "do it normal."

DNC band closes out with Rush's "Limelight"

cruz is gonna get such an erection later tonight from all that booing

kind of love the RNC band's decision to run through every song in the classic rock canon, regardless of whether the song is sufficiently patriotic or uplifting

Cruz looked like he was savoring every second of that hate fest

Gotta say again how much I like David Axelrod. After being reminded that Scott Walker was the first to drop out: "He dropped out so early, he didn't even get a pejorative nickname from Donald Trump."

Sounds like Cruz won the support of Canadian schoolteachers but now has the entire party hating him.

That Cruz clip was insane, wow what a great heel turn

^^^^

when they cut to Trump walking in the building I really thought we were gonna get a Vince McMahon moment..."SAY MY NAME!! SAY MY NAME!!!!"

I was wondering when they wrestle

Even though I'm 97% sure that Trump (yet again) botched this tonight, going by all the talk on CNN, which is almost uniformly anti-Cruz (convention people, panelists, everyone), there's a small part that wonders if this was exactly what they wanted, a convenient villain--even Hillary hasn't been enough--to get anti-Trump Republicans on board. It would help explain the mystery of why they let him speak in the first place.

cruz has missed his calling as a manafort esque advisor - he could get a lot more done if he had just the self awareness to hide behind someone less openly repulsive

well he came close to making himself the leader of the anti-trump republicans

I half expected what happened to happen, only wish he took it further and straight up repudiated trump. it woulda been a gamble but it seems like something ted cruz and only ted cruz might do for attention.

xp

My theory: Cruz aimed to get Trump so riled up that tomorrow half his speech is just trashing Cruz. And who does that help in the end?

Trump even gets to be magnanimous (his Tweet--don't know how to embed them): "Wow, Ted Cruz got booed off the stage, didn't honor the pledge! I saw his speech two hours early but let him speak anyway. No big deal!"

if this whole thing ends up being a bad night out for republicans and they really do try to distance themselves from trump after the election whoever was there first looks best

otoh there is no certainty that the republican party isn't just gonna stay trumpy, it's not like they've learned from the last few elections

A fair number of republicans (~20%?) are ardently pro-Cruz, so vilifying Cruz is unlikely to have enough benefits among anti-Trump to offset decisively alienating those pro-Cruz voters.

cruz is gonna get such an erection later tonight from all that booing

"Heidi dear, let's pretend it's my birthday..."