Binary choices

"We will take the chance he will be a game changer and not a wrecking ball. True, we could be wrong. So what I always tell people is this - with Trump we not what we might get. With Hillary, we know what we will get. And we don't like that at all." 

Some of us who backed Ted Cruz during the primaries know that he and Donald Trump were at big odds with each other. Not too many kind words were exchanged between the two of them. Glenn Beck, who seldom endorses anyone, took a big leap and traveled the countryside to be a pitchman for Ted Cruz. My wife and I went to see Glenn Beck this past summer at a rally in downtown Minneapolis. It was most enjoyable and motivating.

But that was then and this is now. All the contenders have left the field save one - Donald Trump. He is the one who will fight it out with Hillary in the November election. Slowly (and I mean slowly), establishment Republicans as well as some conservative Republicans, have come out to support Trump. Over the weekend, even Ted Cruz came out and gave a somewhat tepid endorsement for Donald Trump.

Glenn Beck had Senator Cruz on his program yesterday. And Glenn was out for bear. After being a true believer in what Ted Cruz stood for in his campaign, one could sense that Beck felt betrayed. So when Ted threw in the towel and backed Donald Trump, that was too much for Beck. Glenn and his team wanted to grill him on the air. They wanted to make him squirm.

Cruz, as promised, called in. And Beck, as promised to the audience, grilled him hard. Ted took it like a man, and responded to Beck this way - "This year we have a binary choice. My choice is never Hillary."

As much as Beck tried to poke holes in that response, Cruz did not waiver. I knew what he meant. A vote for third party, a vote for a write in, a no-vote, is really a vote for Hillary. His distaste for Donald Trump was eclipsed by his visceral distaste for a President Hillary Clinton.

Some of my social media friends are similar to Glenn Beck in that fashion. They will not vote for Trump if the world depended on it - and it might. I see a President Hillary Clinton as not being a fatal blow for our country, but another disabling blow. Our economy is in tatters right now, and her plan is more of the same. Or as someone said a while ago, Hillary's name should be "status quo".

Even though Donald Trump is not our cup of tea, my wife and I will gladly vote for him in the general election. We will take the chance he will be a game changer and not a wrecking ball. True, we could be wrong. So what I always tell people is this - with Trump we not what we might get. With Hillary, we know what we will get. And we don't like that at all.