Cruz Victories

"Victories."   It is the name of his TV ad, now showing in Iowa.   We can learn something about what voters want this year if we look closely at it.   It's 30 seconds, and you can see it for yourself on Youtube.        

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOit03vT1n8

It is an appeal to a moral sentiment that traditional conservative people of all political parties value: respect for the religious traditions of the American tribe.

Cruz associates himself with court cases, Cruz as a defender of traditional Christian faith--fighting to place a Christian cross on public land, fighting to put Old Testament scripture in front of a public building, fighting to assert that school children can or must say "under God" as part of the Pledge of Allegiance.  (Yes, and fighting for guns, which he inserts between the Ten Commandments and the Pledge as sacred.)

President Obama attends prayer breakfasts, he concludes speeches with "God bless the United States of America", he lights Christmas trees on the White House lawn.  Obama is openly Christian and observes the default American religion.   But Obama communicates respect for all religions, rather than being a special advocate for Christianity.   

The charge leveled multiple times per hour on Fox News, and is a regular part of Republican candidate set speeches, is that Obama doesn't particularize the religion of Islam as the idealogical source of terror bombings, only that it is a perversion of Islam.  And they are correct.   Obama wants a war against terror and jihad; Republican candidates and audiences are voicing they want more, clarity that we are fighting against a foreign religion and ideology.   They want acknowledgement that is a fight to defend our traditions.

Voters generally--and especially Republican voters--do not see Obama as a defender of Christianity or American "exceptionalism."    Voters are right.  Obama does not give full throated declaration that America and Christianity are one-and-only special, only that, like citizens in other countries, we consider ourselves special.   This was a moral affront to many voters because Obama spoke of us as special-like-others believe themselves to be instead of special-for-real and above all others.   Rudy Guiliani put it this way:  

"To say, as the president has, that American exceptionalism is no more exceptional than the exceptionalism of any other country in the world, does not suggest a becoming and endearing modesty, but rather a stark lack of moral clarity."

Obama leaves a political void, an opportunity Cruz is filling.   Republican candidates are asserting that clarity about American superiority will not complicate our efforts to find allies and to defeat terror in the Middle East; rather recognizing our above-all-other specialness is essential to our winning that fight.  We are right, we are superior, we are special, and we need to sell it because in fact we have the right thing to sell:  American values.  This sentiment gets big applause and cheers.   This is what the crowds want to hear.   So it makes perfect sense that Cruz is serving it in his TV ad.

But he isn't alone.     Rubio already has an ad up.  The Rubio TV ad, which we looked at last week, says we are "in a civilizational struggle between the values of freedom and liberty and radical Islamic terror."   Rubio, too, is a warrior for American values.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXmMl0_RnXg

Why didn't Obama just trumpet "We are special, really special, and God like us best, the one and only!" position.  Wouldn't it just be serving up patriotic sweet talk??  Wouldn't it be harmless to do so?   No, not harmless.

Obama, like George W. Bush and any professional and competent State Department from any administration, recognizes the hazard of making this a war against a religion rather than a policy.  Lindsey Graham and Jeb Bush recognize it as well, but there is a lesson in the fact that their campaigns have fizzled because it is not what Republican voters want to hear.  

Plus,  Obama-Hillary Clinton Democrats are motivated by calls to fairness and equality, not by assertions of the specialness of the majority.    Democrats like the "liberty and justice for all" part of the Pledge of Allegiance.   "Justice for all" means that ALL faiths are respected, not just Christian faith.   It would mean that Hindus and Jews and Muslims have an equal right to put up religious symbols on land that all the taxpayers pay for.   Democrats value equality, not privilege.

Indeed, reducing the specialness and entitled power of the traditional majority (white, male, Christian, heterosexual, married, prosperous, employed) is central to the Democratic brand.  Obama and Clinton want to come across as reasonable and fair.  Fair and respectful to all.   A great many voters consider that to be "weak" or even anti-American.   They don't want an umpire, they want a leader for a side.  Our side.

So the Cruz ad, with pretty photos of crosses and and a girl with her hand over her heart, is overtly and powerfully political.  It isn't just a greeting card sentiment, the equivalent of a photo of a kitten.   It is asserting that Cruz understands that the American leader doesn't need to communicate fairness or equality or justice for all.  An American leader is an advocate for our side, the traditional side, the historic majority.   And it demonstrates that Cruz has fought so that holders of traditional majority power preserve their space of privilege, not just in homes and churches, but on public land and in public schools.