I hear public figures in the conservative movement – including those who don’t support Trump – say the following thing all the time: “The Establishment caused Trump.” This is a ridiculous non sequitur and I wish people would quit saying it. It isn’t true, and it gives people an excuse to support a man who represents all the worst abuses of the Establishment.

Let me state this as simply as I can: Mitch McConnell’s liberalism is not a good excuse to vote for a liberal. Now let me break it down a little further.

I completely get the anger over the perfidy and spinelessness of Republicans in Congress. But the problem with Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, et al is not that they weren’t insulting enough, or that they weren’t juvenile enough, or that they didn’t have half a dead fox on their forehead.

The problem was that they were liberal. Or more specifically, that their conservatism did not stand up to opposition. More specifically, the argument is that they used their offices to enrich the pocketbooks of themselves and their friends, and protected their own interests ahead of those of the country.

This state of affairs was ripe for the ascension of a doctrinaire conservative firebrand who would otherwise have been dismissed. Someone like maybe a Ted Cruz. Any other year other than this one, Ted Cruz would never have gotten within sniffing distance of the nomination. He would have been pooh poohed as unelectable in the general, a novelty candidate, or someone who was just in it to boost their speaking/book fees. So it’s accurate to say that “the Establishment caused Cruz.”

The argument that “The Establishment caused Trump” is really just indulgence of lazy and incoherent thinking.

Trump was a known quantity from day one of his campaign. As one of the most well known people in America, his previous history as a social liberal and a repeat abuser of the crony capitalist system was well known. He talked about them openly and repeatedly on television, where he frequently appeared. The fact that he is a good friend of – and repeat donor to – Hillary Clinton was known well before he even announced.

None of the material in this video was unknown from day one.

The liberalism and crony capitalism of the Establishment did not cause people to revolt and support… a known liberal recipient of crony capitalism. So stop saying that it did. The evidence of that can be seen in the way that the Establishment is now eagerly embracing Trump in order to prevent even the possibility of a Cruz presidency – and in the way Trump is praising them in return.

The Establishment created Ted Cruz. Lazy and slipshod thinking created Donald Trump.