Based on his speech at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Ted Cruz would like the far-right republicans to imagine they are the Rebel Alliance from the Star Wars universe. He's either blind to the fact that they are actually the Empire or he's intentionally deluding the people he wants to be his following. He wants Trump's base to support him and thinks that appealing to cultural heroes will do just that.
The progressive left-wing did not storm the capitol and attempt to usurp democracy, like the Empire does. The progressive left-wing does not control capital through careful alliances with business and military industry, like the Empire does.
It is the right-wing who wants a regimented hierarchy in a strictly-ordered and stratified society, like the Empire desires.
It is the right-wing who continues to condone the failed war-on-some-drugs that results in the state instilling fear by storming houses, seizing property, killing household pets, and often killing innocent people as well, like the Empire does.
It is the right-wing who supports the ever-growing war-machine that is the military industrial complex, like the Empire does.
The right-wing in the United States is the Empire, they are the villains. They have deluded themselves into seeing themselves in the scrappy rebels who are the heroes of the story because they want to be heroes - not because they want to be scrappy rebels. They are the dominant force in current and past society but their position is shifting and weakening so they react with force and violence to maintain the status quo.
This push-back and reactionary stance arises in the Conservative mind-share each time society makes in-roads to egalitarianism or equality. It was progressive leftists who pushed for equal rights in the 1960s and Conservatives who fought change.
Conservatives strive to protect the entrenched power and existing power structures of inequality and division. They protect and defend a system that devalues labor and human life. Progressives imagine a more egalitarian and loving world, where human life is truly valued.
Lest we forget, it is the followers of Trump who suggested he be God-Emperor, or president for life, or who desire a dynasty of Trump and his family. These are not the values of a democracy-loving Rebel Alliance.
It was the followers of Trump who tore down our nation's flag and hoisted a banner dedicated to a wannabe-dictator. It was the followers of Trump who desecrated the capitol and beat law enforcement officers with the very flags of our nation; who killed a police officer tasked with protecting the democratic process occurring in the building they were storming.
Conservative values are conformity, obedience, loyalty: the values of the subservient to an Empire. The far-right wants Empire. They desire a boot on the necks of those who they deem of less value. They desire storm troopers and displays of power and force. Conservatives are not, and never will be, the Rebel Alliance. They are the Evil Empire the Rebels eventually overthrow.