“Conscience,” it seems, is a curse word to the followers of Donald Trump.
But as our institutions fail and true leaders are scarce, and times grow dark for all who care about liberty and the rule of law, the only light we have left is conscience.
Ted Cruz, the runner up in the Republican presidential primary, concluded his convention speech Wednesday night telling conservatives, “Please, don’t stay home in November.” Long, loud cheers rose up amid happily waved signs.
Then Cruz went on: “If you love our country, and if you love you children the way that I know that you do, stand, and speak, and vote your conscience.”
That word, “conscience,” triggered the boos. “Vote for candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom and to be faithful to the Constitution.”
This was too much for hundreds of Republican delegates. Boos spread across the floor and into the stands. Delegates screamed at Cruz. Others screamed at those booing. Fingers pointing, fists pounding, arguments erupted on the floor. Cruz delivered his final lines amid a chorus of jeers, and then exited with a bow.
Trump’s followers took to the media and blasted Cruz as disgusting and self-serving. Sarah Palin declared Cruz’s career over.
The two knocks on Cruz conflicted: Was he sacrificing his party for himself? Or was he immolating himself?
Cruz is a politician, and a particularly calculating one. His ambition transcends normal bounds. That’s why Cruz, like Trump, has made a career of breaking unwritten rules and alienating those who are nominally allies.
So what was Cruz up to on Wednesday? Was he sabotaging Trump and setting himself up for 2020? Was he just trying to become the center of attention?
We can’t know his intentions for sure. If we are to judge, we’re left with the action itself: telling voters being asked to compromise their principles that they should follow their consciences.
The offense, though, was really the action he didn’t take: Cruz didn’t tell conservatives to vote for Donald Trump.
Whatever his reasons, Ted Cruz did the right thing — and that counts.
It was fitting that “conscience” would be the trigger word for those who have attached themselves to “Mr. Trump.” So many conservatives who should know better have lined up behind Trump, convincing themselves that his erratic, unconservative, impetuous, ignorant behavior will somehow improve if he gets in the White House.
After they lie to themselves, they turn around and lie to the public. Their obedience to power gets them seats in the VIP boxes that lock out Cruz.
These are public figures. These are leaders. Do they think about where they are leading their followers?
St. Thomas More was a leader — a statesman — whom fate placed in a political and moral crisis. King Henry VIII needed an heir. He blamed his wife for the lack of a male child, and so planned to leave her for Anne Boleyn. More was asked to endorse the annulment of Henry’s marriage. He was asked to say something untrue — that the marriage was not a marriage. He refused.
In the play “A Man for All Seasons,” when a cardinal prods More to accede to the king’s demand because England needed an heir.
“Now explain how you, as a consular of England, can obstruct these measures, for the sake of your own private conscience,” the cardinal says.
More replies: “I think that when statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties, they lead their country by a short route to chaos.”
Politics is an ugly and tough game. Compromise is part of it. But the pragmatic demands of politics cannot cancel moral truths. They cannot override conscience. You don’t do a thing you know is wrong. You do not profess a thing you know is false.
Donald Trump is unfit to be president. He lacks the character, the honesty, and the temperament. He doesn’t understand or care for the ideas at the foundation of our country — limited government and the rule of law. If you think Hillary Clinton is worse, you can say that, and that’s a legitimate view. You might even vote for Trump if you see voting as a matter of choosing the lesser of evils.
But to endorse Trump is to attach your name to the man, and it is to lead people down the road More warned of.
The lesson of Wednesday night isn’t that Ted Cruz is a hero — a Thomas More. Cruz, after all, declared Trump “terrific” early in the primary when it may have benefitted Cruz, but definitely helped Trump. Cruz originally pledged, rashly, to support the eventual nominee, even though Trump was a contender.
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.”
Timothy P. Carney, the Washington Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Tuesday and Thursday nights on washingtonexaminer.com.
