Trump plays Napoleon

The GOP’s French Revolution

Cruz plays Robespierre, Trump plays Napoleon.

By John Hart

n the famous cartoon depicting the futility and tragedy of the French Revolution, the ringleader of the “Reign of Terror,” Maximilien Robespierre, is shown putting the executioner in the guillotine because there is no one left to behead. The inscription on a monument behind him reads “Herein lies all of France.” For Republicans in 2016, the inscription may as well read “Herein lies our party,” because there is almost no one left to purge.

The most diverse and accomplished field of Republicans candidates in a generation is down to three. Marco Rubio, the charismatic Tea Party senator from Florida, was cast aside for being insufficiently pure. Now, Donald Trump, a demagogic authoritarian strongman posing as a Republican, is on the verge of taking over our party. And the hard truth is that in spite of the complex causes of Trumpism—globalization, wage stagnation, the collective failure of both parties to solve problems, etc.—we, as conservatives, are partly to blame.

The defining media narrative about 2016 has missed what’s been happening within the GOP. The real fight on the right isn’t between outsiders and “the establishment.” Instead, the divide is between two factions of conservatives that emerged in the government shutdown fight over Obamacare in 2013: an American Revolutionary wing of the Tea Party and a French Revolutionary wing of the Tea Party.

These factions differ deeply on what it means to be “anti-establishment.” The Americans believe our Constitution is based on a skepticism and mistrust of federal power. Our institutions, therefore, must continually be co-opted, subverted and renewed for the cause of liberty. The French, on the other hand, believe the only reliable reform is to burn everything to the ground.

The Americans favor persuasion, and tolerate incremental change and principled compromise. The French favor purges, and demand instant gratification and purity. The Americans believe the proper responses to anger are empathy, policy solutions and servant leadership. The French believe anger should be amplified, fomented and used to annihilate weak and impure opponents. The Americans believe in results and what works. The French believe in scorecards and what sells. The Americans are rebels for a cause. The French are the new RINOs—Rebels in Name Only.

The real fight on the right is between an American Revolutionary wing of the Tea Party and a French Revolutionary wing of the Tea Party.

The French revolutionaries found a ringleader in Ted Cruz and his misguided strategy to defund Obamacare in 2013. The Americans initially viewed the shutdown as the launch of Cruz’s presidential campaign—a grandiose but harmless scheme to brand himself as a heroic conservative fighter. What the Americans didn’t anticipate at the time was how ruthlessly and maniacally Cruz and his allies would direct voter anger at the very conservatives who had worked hardest to prevent the passage of Obamacare.

Cruz’s framing of the issue as a fight against the “surrender caucus,” a phrase he used to describe his less pure conservative colleagues, was a nihilistic “Reign of Terror” assault on conservatism. One Tea Party senator privately blasted the effort as an outburst of mini-McCarthyism. Cruz’s gambit was an anti-constitutional, postmodern gesture that asked voters to imagine a political system other than the one our founders had created—a system in which President Barack Obama would give up his signature achievement if Republicans would only “stand firm.” Cruz’s demand for an all-or-nothing frontal assault asked voters to suspend their belief in the system of separation of powers established by our Constitution—a system that typically only permits gradual, incremental change. (It’s worth noting that after the French Revolutionary plan to kill Obamacare failed, the American Revolutionaries, led by Rubio, carried on and struck a targeted but grievous blow to the law by killing a bailout fund for insurance companies.)

Even worse, by condemning senators such as Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) as insufficiently conservative, Cruz demonstrated a willingness to jeopardize the Bill of Rights to further his own political interests. Conservative hopes of protecting free speech, religious liberty and the Second Amendment depend in part on maintaining seats occupied by senators Cruz derided as members of the “surrender caucus.”

My boss at the time of the shutdown, former Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), preferred different tactics than the ones Cruz used. (As an aside for Trump supporters who think they’re pioneering an “anti-establishment” uprising: in Coburn’s office we were successfully mounting leadership challenges, cataloguing trillions in savings and fighting the establishment’s addiction to earmarks when Trump was hosting “The Apprentice.” This is why some conservatives are intrigued by a Coburn third-party run even though Coburn has no plan to mount such a bid.)

Cruz and the French Revolutionaries amplified voter anger and unleashed forces they couldn’t control.

Still, Coburn didn’t attack Cruz personally for his handling of the shutdown (though Trump did fabricate a quote to this effect). In fact, Coburn speaks warmly of Cruz, and also of his friend Barack Obama. Like the late Justice Antonin Scalia, Coburn prefers to attack ideas rather than individuals. But Coburn did criticize the shutdown strategy as “intellectually dishonest.” He recently repeated criticisms of Cruz’s “technique” saying it’s not enough to be right; you must also be effective. Coburn also warned against the consequences of the “Cruz effect” that heightens voter anger by creating false hope and unrealistic expectations.

Coburn was right. Cruz and the French Revolutionaries amplified voter anger and unleashed forces they couldn’t control.

In an interview with The New Yorker, Cruz once said, “In both law and politics, I think the essential battle is the meta-battle of framing the narrative.” Cruz is correct about that. But this election cycle he has lost control of his own narrative, and Donald Trump is in control instead. That’s not to say that the narrative has changed. The Cruz effect is the Trump effect. Trump is simply the Napoleon in Cruz’s French Revolution—the strongman who swoops in to bring order out of chaos, and a voice to those angered by the “establishment’s” betrayal and failures.

What’s tragic about 2016 is conservatives were winning before the rise of Trump. The GOP gains in the 2010 and 2014 elections, which gave us control of the House and Senate, were larger than our gains in 1994. More importantly, as Ben Domenech notes, the American Revolutionaries had essentially co-opted leadership while allowing leadership to believe they had tamed the rebels. Paul Ryan, for instance, is no moderate. He’s a true conservative the establishment embraces. His rise demonstrates just how successful conservatives have been at co-opting the establishment and moving the GOP to the right and back toward Reagan conservatism.

Yet, instead of building on our gains, the French insisted on perpetuating a fiction that conservatives were a marginalized and victimized minority. Voters had to overthrow the establishment, Cruz insisted, even though Cruz and other conservatives had become a dominant part of that establishment.

And now, Trump threatens to undo everything conservatives have gained. For Trump, conservatism continues to be a second language. True conservatives embrace the apparent paradox of republican governance—we seek to acquire power to limit power. Our goal is to diminish federal control in order to elevate individuals and local communities. For Trump, though, it’s all about Trump and state power. He’s a populist without portfolio or principles—a strongman without ideas and no vision beyond strength.

Trump is simply the Napoleon in Cruz’s French Revolution—the strongman who swoops in to bring order out of chaos, and a voice to those angered by the “establishment’s” betrayal and failures.

As the candidate still in the race with the best shot at beating Trump, Cruz has a responsibility to mitigate the damage he helped cause. He needs to forsake his role in the French Revolutionary uprising and rejoin the American faction. Cruz can be forgiven for a being a double-minded politician—an evangelical nihilist—but he can help himself by embracing the rarest of virtues in politics: humility.

Cruz is right that if Kasich stays in the race, it will only help Trump. But to win the nomination, Cruz needs to woo Kasich voters, not lecture them. Confessing, repenting and reconciling with his colleagues and, more importantly, the voters he misled will tell Kasich voters he’s different than Trump and also a viable general election candidate. A leading conservative Senate aide confirmed people are ready to forgive Cruz for what they see as his exploitation of voter anger, but noted a little humility will help. The aide joked that it’s like “the guy who tried to run over your dog and poison your lawn expecting he should be invited over to dinner.”

In revolutionary France, the Reign of Terror didn’t end well for Cruz’s occasional soul mate Robespierre and his un-merry band. Robespierre himself met his end in the guillotine he used so liberally. And Napoleon ended the French Revolution with a “whiff of grapeshot” against the masses in Paris. One can already smell a whiff of grapeshot from Trump, at least rhetorically.

While the French Revolution produced a tyrant, the American Revolution created a generation of statesmen unlike any in history. If Cruz can summon the courage and humility to become a shill for compromising sell-outs like James Madison and John Adams, he’ll find himself in very good company, and with much better odds of becoming the GOP nominee and winning in November.

John Hart is editor in chief of Opportunity Lives. A version of this article was published previously on that site.