In part, this is the normal vice of a party primary. People form a partisan attachment to their guy and have to insist that absolutely nobody else will do; that every other candidate is a weak-kneed establishment shill, and so is everybody who supports him. This is what we’re hearing a lot of right now from some supporters of Ted Cruz, but most of all from online supporters of Donald Trump.
I should point out the irony of this and why it rubs so many of us wrong when Trumpkins call us “the establishment.”
Here’s a small example. Back in 2009, I got very involved with my local Tea Party group and ended up moderating a Tea Party-sponsored Republican primary debate for Virginia’s fifth congressional district. When the establishment candidate (he was backed by Eric Cantor and other Virginia Republican bigwigs) looked like he was going to be the only no-show at the event, our local Tea Party leader put together a cardboard cutout of him, dressed it in a suit and tie, and put it at his podium as a visual reminder mocking him for ducking out. Before the debate, the organizer asked me if this was OK; she didn’t want to embarrass me as moderator. I told her to go for it, and it made the front page of the local paper.
The point is that I’m no stranger to helping the grassroots poke a finger in the eye of the establishment. And where was Trump when all this was going on? Saying nice things about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. So tell me again how he’s the true conservative, and I’m the establishment shill.
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