Trump, Cruz, and New York Values

Look. It is a commonplace among us, or ought to be, that drivers ed classes in New York teach the students to drive with their knees so that they can give other drivers the bird using both hands. At least that’s what I heard.

And this relates, as I am sure you recognize, to an interesting exchange between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz last night. Ted Cruz had earlier tagged Trump as not being really conservative, but rather embodying “New York values.” This was no doubt said with Iowans in mind — some red state red meat — and these Iowans knew exactly what Cruz meant. But Cruz was asked about it in the debate, and he carefully explained that he was talking about social liberalism, pro-abortion policies, pro-gay mirage sentiment, and so on. Trump countered with an appeal to the heroism of New Yorkers in the aftermath of the 911 attack.

In the media response to this exchange, I was interested to note that a number of (New York-based) pundits thought this was one moment when Trump triumphed. The consensus was that Cruz had a very good night, sure, fine, but that on this point Trump landed a solid one on the Cruz-jaw. What we saw in fact was a display of regional patriotism that had nothing whatever to do with the point in hand. That, and the fact that Cruz doesn’t have a glass jaw.

On the merits, Cruz is exactly right, and there is no getting away from it. The howls of outrage are the kind of thing you hear whenever a soft target is hit. I said a moment ago that Iowans knew what Cruz meant. In fact, absolutely everyone knows what Cruz meant. He meant it, he said it, and it has the additional irritating quality of being true.

But the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, thought that Cruz tagging New York with its extreme liberalism was “un-American.” This was the same governor who just last January caused a stir by saying exactly the same thing that Cruz did, only in reverse.

Quoth Cuomo — and doesn’t that have a ring? — “Who are they? Are they these extreme conservatives who are right-to-life, pro-assault-weapon, anti-gay? Is that who they are? Because if that’s who they are and they’re the extreme conservatives, they have no place in the state of New York, because that’s not who New Yorkers are.”

And Cruz was able to cite Trump from an earlier interview in which his expressed positions were decidedly liberal, and which Trump explained, at that time, with a “Hey, I’m from New York.”

So shall we quit pretending? New York is a dark blue state, and a very powerful one. The values they use to govern themselves are values that we do not want deployed in governing us. In the race to the bankrupted bottom, which Detroit already won, liberals elsewhere are earnestly contending for the silver medal, and perhaps the bronze. The rest of us out here would appreciate it if you would keep our municipalities out of it.

The fact that this is plainly true does not mean that a deep blue city can’t have a “finest hour.” New York firefighters running into burning skyscrapers is something that Donald Trump applauds. So does Megan Kelly, so does Charles Krauthammer. But — and this is the point — so does Ted Cruz. So do I. That means that this is not a debate about heroism.

Cruz was critiquing particular policies which are, even as we speak, in the process of wrecking New York, and he was saying that we ought not adopt those policies on a larger scale. We will almost certainly get the same results if we do. He doesn’t want to export those policies to the rest of the country, policies which New York strongly identifies with. To respond with an appeal to a set of heroic behaviors found in New York which Ted Cruz would be happy to export to the rest of country is cute, glib, somewhat effective, and anything but pertinent.

Regional patriotism is a good thing. It is honorable in itself. Whenever I visit New York, I enjoy it myself — vicariously, but I do enjoy it. But whenever natural affection for place, any place, is used to blow smoke over a substantive truth, then it is being used in just the way described by Samuel Johnson — as the “last refuge of the scoundrel.”