Capitulation, appeasement, submission? No!

Stuart Schneiderman on Ted Cruz's refusal to endorse Trump:

Let’s see: Trump called Cruz a liar, over and over again. He maligned and insulted Cruz’s wife. He defamed Cruz’s father by saying that he was part of the plot to assassinate President Kennedy. In so doing, he relieved Cruz of the obligation to keep his pledge. You are not obliged to keep a pledge to someone who treats you like garbage.

Had Cruz endorsed Trump, it would have counted as an abject capitulation, an appeasement and a submission. At a time when we have all come to see the Obama administration as supine and submissive on the world stage, Republican candidates should not set an example of caving in to a bully.

Writing in the London Telegraph Tim Stanley describes the Marco Rubio video:

He [Trump] once met a guy called Marco Rubio when running for the nomination – “little Marco”, he called him – and so Rubio was asked to give an endorsement, too. He did so via a video. So tawdry was Marco’s humiliation, so abject, that he decided it was best to deliver it as far away from the convention as possible.

If Cruz had endorsed Trump, you would have read the same lines, with his name put in place of Rubio's.

In purely psychological terms, it is bad to kowtow to a bully. It is bad to give the impression, in any way, that you accept the role that you have been cast in. People have been saying that Trump was magnanimous in giving Cruz a prime time speaking slot, but Trump also orchestrated the boos and tried to steal the stage by walking into the convention as Cruz closed his speech. If you think that Trump was not trying to rub his defeated rival’s face in the mud, you do not understand very much.

Who is at fault for the Cruz non-endorsement. Donald Trump, that's who. If Trump wanted an endorsement, he should have been magnanimous in victory and taken back the flood of insults that were directed against all of the candidates, but most viciously against Ted Cruz. He should have apologized. When he did not, Cruz could not have endorsed Trump without accepting the caricature that Trump had established.

If someone is bullying you, the one thing you cannot do is to give in and to accept the role he is casting you in.

When Trump did not take back his slanders, he left Cruz no other choice but to set an example by standing up to a bully. Others who have suffered the wrath of Trump did not show up. Others who made the pledge do not feel bound by it.

Of course, the New York delegation had been told to boo Ted Cruz. While many commentators have declared that Cruz put an end to his political career, the verdict is still out. Writing in the Weekly Standard, John McCormack offers a different angle:

But the booing and atrocious treatment Cruz and his wife received after the speech made Cruz's remarks seem downright courageous. CNN reported that Heidi Cruz had to be escorted out of the event by security, as one man screamed "Goldman Sachs!" in the investment manager's face.

That treatment, which Cruz has been receiving from Trump supporters as well as from establishment Republicans like John Boehner and Peter King, has put him in the position where going along with the majority feels like a capitulation. Keep in mind, the one person the Republican establishment did not want to see as the party standard bearer was not Donald Trump: it was Ted Cruz.

...If the nominee does not reach out, does not apologize for the torrent of insults he shot out at all his serious opponents, he has relieved them of their obligation to keep their pledge. For all I know, Trump might have found a winning strategy. Many people do not understand that the inability to apologize is a sign of weakness, not strength. How many there are, we do not yet know.

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