Ted Cruz and the value of loyalty in a conservative party

Edmund Burke, the grandfather of conservatism, wrote much on the nature of responsible party, as the topic relates to both to government and to the loyal opposition. While Burke was among those who held that party loyalty was not an absolute value, he did hold party loyalty in high regard. It should be no surprise that the Republican Party, as the conservative party in American politics, holds party loyalty in high regard as well. In previous election years with contested primaries, one sees the GOP unifying around its nominee, with the defeated main contenders for the nomination rallying around the man who has won the nomination. So it was when Reagan issued a rallying cry for Gerald Ford in 1976. 




And so it was in 1992 when after a bitter primary battle Pat Buchanan stood before the Republican National Convention and gave his support to the man who had defeated him, George H.W. Bush.

This election season, things have worked out differently for the GOP, as the defeated standard-bearers of that party’s Establishment have withheld their endorsements of the party’s nominee, Donald Trump. First, Jeb Bush refused to support Trump in the coming general election, and now in a speech to the Republican National Convention yesterday, Ted Cruz refused to endorse Trump, earning him the boos of a vocal contingent of the assembled delegates. And so their actions raise the question, wither loyalty?

For a conservative, party is more than simply a collection of ideological points or material interests. Party, for the conservative, is about fellow-feeling, it is about a shared commitment to the country, to being a band of happy warriors fighting to conserve the best of our civilization while advocating prudent efforts at reform to adjust the application of those principles to the changing conditions that exist for all things under the sun. Within responsible party there are disagreements and there are disputes. But at the end of the day, the party exists to bring together men and women into community — into a polis, to use the ancient Greek word — where their fortunes and futures are bound together in the common vocation of preserving the patrimony of our nation to hand on, in identifiable form, to the next generation. 

To conserve. To preserve. To reform. To bequeath. Those are the practical and prudential tasks of a conservative party that seeks to defend the Permanent Things in a broadly liberal order. 

For a conservative party to carry out this vocation there must be loyalty within the party. Petty ambition (the bane of democratic politics!) must be subsumed to the goals and leadership that the party puts forward to the voters as it seeks to to assume the mantle of responsible government. Loyalty and disciple are at the core of any party that claims the mantle of conservatism. 

Sadly, Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz seem not to have learned that lesson. To read deeply in Aristotle and Burke would do both those men some good. Bush’s political career was over, of course, when his campaign self-destructed after his catastrophic showing early in the primary season, burning through over $100 million worth of donor money before finally accepting reality & bowing out of the contest. Cruz, however, has had a promising future before him, both as a senator & as a candidate who commanded considerable support during the Republican primary this season. Yet, it appears that Cruz  chose to damage his position within the party by refusing to support the man who prevailed during the Republican primary process. Cruz & Trump disagree on a good many things. But do they disagree more than Taft & Eisenhower in 1952? More than Reagan & George H.W. Bush in 1980? In each of those cases, as well as the ones mentioned previously, bitter rivals put aside their disagreements and united in defense of the party & its nominee. Cruz decided not to follow those examples, and instead set out to defend his own place in the party, rather than the party’s choice for the nomination. 

Time will tell how much harm Cruz has done to his future political ambitions with his speech. But he can only harm the Republican Party if that party decides to follow his example and fails to reaffirm its nature as a community brought together to accomplish the practical and prudential task of conservative political action in a representative democracy. To conserve. To preserve. To reform. To bequeath.

Update # 1: over at PJ Media, Roger Simon writes about the effect of Cruz's speech on his political future. Read it all: Pence 1, Crux 0. As Simon observes: 

Ironically, it was Pence, not Cruz, who put himself on the map for the presidency Wednesday night. Though it's an eternity away, if Trump fails, it would not startle me at all to see Mike Pence in the surprising position of GOP frontrunner for 2020.

In politics, particularly on the conservative side, loyalty tends to be rewarded.

Update #2: Michael Reagan, President Reagan's oldest son (and not fan of Trump), states the case for party loyalty to the nominee quite well: 

I am not going to allow Donald Trump to lose to Hillary because I refused to show up I am voting Trump and so should you @newsmax

— Michael Reagan (@ReaganWorld) July 19, 2016

He reinforces that point in a Tweet from the Friday after the close of the GOP convention:

Trump wasn't my choice but my candidate @JohnKasich signed a pledge and I will honor it..@newsmax @realDonaldTrump

— Michael Reagan (@ReaganWorld) July 22, 2016