Conservatives Only Have Themselves To Blame From Trump's Attacks On Cruz

If only there was some way they could have known beforehand.

For months now, it’s been well-established that Donald Trump says things that are false and insulting. Frequently he makes remarks that contradict remarks he’s made earlier. And then there are times he says things that aren’t really in line with the conservative philosophy of minimal government.

So you can understand everyone’s surprise when Trump – Donald Trump, of all people! – began criticizing Ted Cruz in ways that were false and derisive, and which even contradicted things he’d previously said about Cruz.

Donald Trump speaks to Ted Cruz at a break during the Fox Business Network Republican presidential debate at the North Charleston Coliseum, Thursday. (AP/Chuck Burton)

In response, pundits such as Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin have tried to steer Trump back onto the course of respectful, conservative-advocacy rhetoric. Not that Trump was ever really on that course, but they figured it would be worth a try.

Limbaugh declared that Trump was making a “strategic mistake” in using “liberal” criticisms to go after Trump. Levin warned Trump to “cut the crap,” focus on substantive issues, or risk losing the support of conservatives.

But, amazingly, it didn’t work! Donald Trump – the real estate mogul who has successfully resisted every previous attempt to get him to rein in his invective – somehow managed to ignore this “friendly advice,” and continues to besmirch Cruz to this day: calling him “nasty” and suggesting he’s not eligible to be president. It’s almost like Trump isn’t open to feedback…

Really, is this a joke? Many of the conservatives who are outraged that Trump is dismantling the electability of Cruz are some of the same conservatives who applauded Trump as he employed to the very same tactics against others.

Limbaugh, Levin, and others loved it in 2015 when Trump brushed off the media. It didn’t matter back then that Trump was being insulting, or self-contradictory, or not particularly conservative in the abstract. The only people paying for Trump’s rhetoric back then were illegal immigrants from Mexico, or women, or reporters who are handicapped, all of which was apparently OK.

But now, in 2016, it’s different. Now, Trump’s rhetoric is hampering the presidential prospects of a reliable conservative in the form of Ted Cruz. Suddenly, Trump’s rhetoric is just completely unacceptable.

I don’t know what the best term for this is – “blowback,” “karma,” “irony”? – but it’s galling beyond belief that the people who loved it when Trump disdained “political correctness” and smeared others now grumble that their own favorite is getting covered in muck, too. Maybe if they’d stuck up for some of Trump’s earlier victims, things would be different.

But, no, they reveled in Trumpian Impunity, only to discover that impunity is actually pretty fickle and unruly. Who knew?

The conservatives who supported Trump only have themselves to blame. They chose The Form of the Destructor; they should stop whining about the mess.

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