The Republican Party's crisis of conscience

Even though Cruz the man is not the model, his actions and his words are.

Cruz’s speech Wednesday night laid out many important conservative ideas. But the most important idea was the last one: Follow your conscience.

Hillary Clinton would be a terrible president, truly. A divided party makes a President Hillary more likely. But if we always decide our course by calculating the long-term consequences, we commit the hubris of esteeming our foresight to much. We also neglect principle.

We cannot make the world perfect, or even good. We cannot banish evil. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, in the midst of the living hell of Soviet Russia, explained what we can do: “You can resolve to live your life with integrity. Let your credo be this: Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me.”