So, a lot of people are freaking out over "Lying Ted's" (Ted Cruz for those of us who don't keep up on Trump's lingo) refusal to endorse Trump. "He signed a pledge!", they say. "He should keep his word" they say. Well, I'm just going to comment on this, from someone who has been unhappy with my own party, loyalty pledges are bull****.
We live in a two party system. You're free to run outside of these parties on paper, but you'll never get anywhere if you do. If you run outside of these parties, the two parties will crush your campaign. The system is rigged against you. At worst you might even be harassed at every level like Ralph Nader claims to be. Even without outright harassment, the pull of the parties is so strong that most people are convinced they have to support them, or that their vote won't count, or even that they are complicit in getting the other guy elected if they don't support them.
So you have to run as a member of one of the two parties. So you do. And then the party makes you sign a pledge of loyalty to them if you do. So basically, to run for office in this system, they require you to sell your soul up front. You don't have a viable choice not to do so, you have to sign a pledge to run as a member of the party, and if you don't, you're seen as a free loader of the party or something. Even though they rigged the system where you have no other choice.
So what happens after you sign this pledge. You run, and any individual thought or action is discouraged. People considered Sanders not a true democrat because his ideology didn't totally line up with the party line. He didn't encourage the minor incrementalist crap they push, he wanted big proposals. And the party loyalists made sure to remind voters at every turn about how he doesn't spend time on down ticket candidate, yada yada yada. So, you gotta be a team player. You gonna play their game, and you have to stifle all individual thought and fall in behind them, or you get ostracized. You lose anyway if you remain true to your principles, because these parties don't want you to be principled. They want you to be sheep. And then we wonder why we have so many luke warm cookie cutter politicians out there with no soul and no new ideas. We wonder why America is so broken, and we wonder why we can't get a good honest politician with new ideas and convictions. It's because this system ensures that honest, intelligent, convicted politicians cannot succeed in this system. They can't run outside of it. And if they run in it, their positive qualities are wrung out of them by the system.
I don't have much good to say about Ted Cruz. I see him as a religious nut, a neocon, and a guy who preaches the gospel of the 1% and destroys worker rights, our safety nets, our ability to change things for the better. I would say, on any other day, Ted Cruz is a problem. But today, I have to respect Cruz. Because Cruz just bucked the system. He got up on stage, and told people to vote their conscience. He didn't tell people not to vote for Trump, he was pretty neutral on Trump. He just told people to vote for whom they thought was right.
The party is freaking out. "He signed a pledge." "He should fall in line!" "How DARE he not be a good little party lapdog!" Yeah, well, here's the thing. Screw your stupid loyalty pledges that you use to control people. Screw your entire system of control. Ted Cruz just showed some individual thought, and spoke with conviction, and while I don't like anything else about the guy, I have to admire him here. He did the right thing. Someone freaking has to. John Boehner might see him as "lucifer in the flesh" for his uncompromising nature, but you know what? At least he has convictions. At least he has cajones. At least he stands up for what he thinks is right. I just wish more people would be like him in this sense.
The way I see it, if you haven't put two and two together. These loyalty pledges are made out of duress. You need to sign one if you want to get anywhere in politics these days. And in abiding by them, you sell your soul to a corrupt party machinery with its own agenda that beats the individuality out of you. These pledges are a symptom of everything wrong with politics these days. Screw these pledges, Cruz was right for breaking them, and I hope more people to do. Including you, Bernie. Including you. I hope you follow suit at the DNC next week. I'll be waiting.
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