I once met Sen. Ted Cruz. In 2016 (I believe), I was at one of Erick Erickson’s gatherings in Texas, and we went to some event or other, and there was Cruz, shaking hands up and down the line, including mine. When he later came to Georgia, I make sure to attend his rally—a small location in Perry, if memory serves me. I was a Cruz guy in the 2016 election. In those days, the Houston County Republican Party was divided among supporters of Trump, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz, with a smattering of others. It was the Trumpers who, rather forcibly, took control of the party by the head. When I received my GOP state convention delegate card, being duly chosen, I knew what my conscience dictated. I burned it.
Ted Cruz spoke at the 2016 Republican National Convention, where Donald J. Trump was coronated as the avatar, the very VOICE, of Red America (if you want a rabbit hole, watch that video, then this one, and note how the man has changed). Just before Cruz took the stage, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick buttonholed him, trying to squeeze an endorsement. But Cruz was bitter. Who wouldn’t be, after enduring a Niagra Falls of insults, conspiracy accusations, and loss after loss to Trump? Instead of an endorsement, Cruz told the crowd, “vote your conscience.”
Then, not two months later, Cruz found his conscience absent, posting on Facebook:
If Clinton wins, we know — with 100% certainty — that she would deliver on her left-wing promises, with devastating results for our country.
My conscience tells me I must do whatever I can to stop that.
We also have seen, over the past few weeks and months, a Trump campaign focusing more and more on freedom — including emphasizing school choice and the power of economic growth to lift African-Americans and Hispanics to prosperity.
No quote in political history has aged worse than this ever-rotting clump of text. First of all, Cruz gave Hillary Clinton way too much credit. Had she won, yes, it would have been a nightmare for many conservatives. But she would not have been able to deliver on her left-wing promises, because she, as Herself, lacked the personal magnetism, warmth, and humanity to get things done. Not to say I wanted her to win (I didn’t, at the time), but the ice queen would have been a failure akin to President Jimmy Carter, or worse, in office.
Today, we know that the Trump administration’s focus is not on freedom; it’s on featherbedding, fawning over despots, and other f-words to everyone else. I was going to comment on the Cheesecake Identity plot this week but lacked the time. It’s really amusing to me to see conservative pundits melt down over Barack Obama’s funny joke about Trump’s taste in decor. Rarely do I get to see serious people simultaneously miss the joke and get angry about it. So I’ll add this one point.
The Cheesecake Factory® has very strict demographic standards. To quote its own investor relations website: “The average check for each customer, including beverages and desserts, was approximately $31.79 during fiscal 2025.” The company looks for locations with dense trade, meaning around 250,000 population, with household income averaging $80,000, with the majority relatively young (70% of guests under 45 years old). In Georgia, there are six counties: Fulton, Gwinnett, Cobb, DeKalb, Cherokee, and Forsyth, that meet this requirement. Alpharetta, where I live, has a Cheesecake Factory restaurant. Warner Robins, where I lived for 26 years, does not.
Back around 2016, I famously wrote a column in the local Houston County newspaper with a title something like “why we can’t have nice things,” that included the argument on how the area could lift itself into Cheesecake Factory territory. That one got my column cancelled by the paper (I can’t even find it in the archives).
What’s funny is that all the counties in north metro Atlanta which generally vote blue have the option to eat at a Cheesecake Factory, while the MAGAs do not. The pundit class misses this totally, because while they claim to speak about the soiled masses as the vox populi, they are members of the same economic clan that can eat at a Cheesecake Factory, hence they can grok the insult about decor, but miss the real joke entirely. I am not even sure that Obama realized how funny and ironic the joke was on so many levels. It will continue to resonate for years, like “covfefe,” returning like a cow’s cud.
Getting back to Cruz’s “vote your conscience” remark. First of all, he didn’t mean it when he said it. What I found out since is that Ted Cruz couldn’t find his conscience with both hands, a flashlight, and tweezers. Both Cruz and Texas senate candidate Ken Paxton could look for their consciences together for more years than there are atoms in the universe, and not stumble upon them.
And the other people with whom Donald Trump cavorts or esteems have not seen their consciences since they gurgled toothless baby food (and some of them will gurgle again, being of advanced age and degraded mentation). I am reminded of Joe Biden’s sizing up of Vladimir Putin. “I said, ‘Mr. Prime Minister, I'm looking into your eyes, and I don’t think you have a soul,’” Biden told [The New Yorker magazine]. “He looked back at me, and he smiled, and he said, ‘We understand one another.’”
I believe Putin and Trump understand one another, but in a much different context. The same with Chinese President Xi Jinping, or Victor Orban, or a host of other dictators, some who have crossed Trump, some who are in a U.S. prison, and some who Trump venerates since they don’t have to deal with petty politics. It’s all about power, baby. And by that, I don’t mean “power to the people.”
So, when you go to the polls on Tuesday, or if you’ve already voted, great! But when you vote, vote your conscience. To do that, first, make sure you can find it. If it’s been a while, try it on, fit it for size, and get comfortable in it. Then ask yourself if it’s worth sacrificing the people of Ukraine just to satisfy a lust for vengeance against Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Ask if it’s worth a few thousand cases of measles, along with other degenerative diseases like polio, to satisfy the conspiratorial itch of a bad tempered lawyer running our health system. Ask if it’s worth the ate up Major cosplaying a Secretary of War, causing havoc in our military. Ask if it’s worth Making Iran Great Again by strengthening them in a war we never should have started unless we were prepared to end it.
Ask if $4 at the gas pump, the price of meat, your own salary, the rise of malicious AI, the decline of our national parks system, the dismantling of trust in institutions, is salve to your conscience, because at least we own the libs.
I know, some Republicans running for federal office are decent people. People I would vote for. But is it worth your conscience to enable a Republican-controlled House and Senate be a rubber stamp for the guy who Cruz refused to endorse in 2016 (at least until he did endorse him and never got off his knees since)? I don’t know. I haven’t voted yet.
I do pray that I find my conscience and wear it in the voting booth. I believe many, many others have done the same. We will see what happens this coming Tuesday. Maybe Cruz’s words won’t continue rotting in a grave. Maybe, for once, politics will give life to a piece of good advice, instead of doing what politics does to most things.
Vote your conscience. Watch what happens.
I have the same sentiments towards Ted Cruz as you do. While I could not cast a vote for a Democratic candidate. I did not cast a vote for either Governor or Representative. The Republican candidate for Governor prominently advertise his Trump endorsement (given prior to the primary) until he decided that it was not resonating and dropped that endorsement to focus on an endorsement from the departing Governor. As far as the Representative candidate, the American people cannot consistently bellyache about the do nothing Congresses and then repeatedly elect incumbents.