There are two types of Machiavellians inpolitics, Selfish Machiavellians and KindMachiavellians. The Selfish ones are the oneswe usually think of — the nakedly ambitiouspeople who are always strategizing, sometimesruthlessly, for their own personal advantage.
The Kind Machiavellians realize that it’s smartto get along with people, so they pick theirfriendships strategically, feigning affectiontoward those who might be useful.
In Washington and maybe in life, there aremany more Kind Machiavellians than Selfishones. But Ted Cruz has always stood out forbeing nakedly ambitious for himself.
He was always drawn to establishmentinstitutions: Princeton, Harvard Law. Hispersonal drive to gain elite posts was noted,even by the standards of such places. He learnedtennis to get a clerkship with Justice WilliamRehnquist. According to The Boston Globe, afemale law student who was giving him a ridewas shocked when he quickly asked her abouther I.Q. and SAT scores.
He joined the Republican establishment whileyoung, working for George W. Bush, thoughhe was marginalized when administrationjobs were handed out, reportedly because hisambition was off-putting. Yet Cruz is intelligent,and knows that sometimes you have to switchtactics in order to climb. Over the past few years,Cruz has become a team player. In fact, he’sbecome a central member of the conservativeestablishment.
A little history lesson is in order. Duringthe 1970s conservatives self-consciouslybuilt establishment institutions to counterthe liberal establishment. But with theelection of Ronald Reagan, the conservativeestablishment split into two. There was theregular conservative establishment, filled withmainstream conservatives who wanted to usethe inside levers of power that Republicans nowcontrolled.
But there was also a conservative counterestablishment.
This was populated with peoplelike Paul Weyrich, Richard Viguerie, BrentBozell and others who were temperamentallyincapable of governance. Many of these OldRight people broke with Reagan because hewasn’t ideologically pure on this or that policymatter.
Today the conservative community still hasat least two establishments, or three if you wantto throw in the young Reform Conservatives.
The mainstream establishment tends to sidewith party leaders like Paul Ryan and whoeverthe presidential nominee is. The Old RightCounter Conservative Establishment hasgrown in recent years. For example, the HeritageFoundation, which used to be more or lessconservative establishment, has gone moreCounter Establishment.
The difference is the establishment wantsto use the levers of power to practically passreforms. The Counter Establishment believesthat Washington is pervasively corrupt and isimplacably hostile to the G.O.P. leadership.
Since he came to Washington, Ted Cruz hasmeticulously aligned himself with the rising andrich conservative Counter Establishment. He’scalled his party leader a liar on the Senate floor.
In another recent floor speech he accused everyRepublican but him and Mike Lee of selling outtheir principles for money. His efforts to shutdown the government did enormous harm to theRepublican Party and to the country, but theycemented his relationship with the membersof the Counter Establishment. Crucially, thosebattles enabled him to amass the email lists thatare a large part of his donor base.
His campaign is uniting the CounterEstablishment. According to some excellentreporting in the National Journal, he wasrapturously received by members of the Councilfor National Policy, an important CounterEstablishment gathering. He’s been endorsed bythe old guard, Viguerie and Bozell.
The Counter Establishment is now nearly asfinancially flush and institutionally entrenchedas the mainstream establishment. Cruz has beenable to tap into it to raise gobs of money. In thethird quarter, Cruz raised $12.2 million, abouttwice what rival Marco Rubio raised over thesame period. His super PACs raised $31 millionin the few weeks of his campaign, largely fromhedge fund manager Robert Mercer. He’s hadfund-raisers hosted by Joseph Konzelmann, amanaging director at Goldman Sachs.
He’s won over the Counter Establishment andeven some of the regular establishment by beingtactical in his policy positions, shifting his viewsmost notoriously on trade promotion authorityand foreign policy generally. He savagesRepublicans habitually but initially refused tocriticize Donald Trump. As Eliana Johnsonof National Review put it, the paradox of Cruzis that “The man who boasts of his ideologicalpurity is perhaps the most obviously tacticalcandidate.”Cruz is riding the shift in the conservativeactivist establishment, the way groups like theClub for Growth now provide a power base forsomeone who wants to run against the G.O.P.
leadership.
A friend once joked that the journalist hasthe ultimate power: The power to choosewho he wants to be co-opted by. Ted Cruzis surging as the figurehead of the rich andinterlocked Counter Establishment. Andhe gets to do it while pretending that he isantiestablishment. That’s a nice trick. Even aMachiavellian one.
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DAVID BROOKS>
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