Tea Party vs Trump

Tea Party Patriots leader Jenny Beth Martin made a powerful case against Donald Trump in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference this past Friday, and in it were points we think every conservative and Tea Party movement supporter should consider as they vote in their respective Republican primaries. (You can view Jenny Beth’s speech through this link and it is well worth your time)

Jenny Beth channeled our concerns about Donald Trump as she made the point that, “I know you’re angry and I know you’re upset too and I know that Donald Trump’s tapping into that anger. It’s a smart campaign strategy because he makes it seem like he shares our frustration and it’s like he’s fighting on our behalf… “

However, said Martin, “Donald Trump loves himself first, last and everywhere in between. He loves himself more than our country, he loves himself more than the constitution. He doesn’t love you, me, and he doesn’t love the Tea Party. Donald Trump has no business thinking he’s Tea Party and every Tea Party person who truly loves the constitution should take that into account when you’re casting your vote.”

Jenny Beth Martin got it right as she pointed out that based on his record on eminent domain and press freedom Trump is a false and, Martin noted, politically inconsistent on many issues such as health care, abortion and immigration.

Jenny Beth Martin was certainly right from our perspective, but she didn’t really have time to offer a complete picture of Donald Trump’s anti-constitutional conservative positions.

The question Jenny Beth Martin asked and answered in speech to CPAC was, in its essence, “Is Donald Trump a limited government constitutional conservative and does he share the values of the limited government constitutional conservatives of the Tea Party movement?”

Martin’s answer was “NO,” especially if you are a limited government constitutional conservative concerned about the steady erosion of the constitutional limits on government, and especially concerned about the heavy-handed use of executive power Donald Trump in which Barack Obama has so regularly indulged.

Just as Donald Trump often appears unfamiliar with the Bible and the principles of Biblical living, so he often appears to be unfamiliar, even contemptuous of Constitutional principles and the idea that the Constitution is the law that governs government.

Indeed, many of Trump’s big applause lines such as, "We're going to get Apple to build their damn computers and things in this country instead of in other countries," could only be accomplished by extra-constitutional means, such as coercive taxes and regulations that no president could properly accomplish on his own authority.

The Constitution isn’t a smorgasbord from which Presidents can pick and choose a few dishes that are convenient to their political taste –it is the law that governs government and the fundamental underpinning of constitutional conservatism.

One of the primary reasons we endorsed Ted Cruz is that he is a constitutional conservative who has spent the past several decades defending constitutional liberty. Ted Cruz has a consistent record of defending the individual against the power of the state, and unlike Donald Trump he holds the Constitution in such reverence that he does not make violating it into a cheap applause line in a speech.

We urge our friends in the limited government constitutional conservative and Tea Party movements to take Jenny Beth Martin’s analysis to heart and vote Ted Cruz in their upcoming Republican presidential primaries.