I have a theory that on the Internet, you’re never more than six degrees of separation away from a black hole Donald Trump thinkpiece. I don’t understand it. Sure, he’s still the Republican frontrunner for president, and he keeps spewing out consistently horrible things. The thing is, while our attention has been zeroed in on him, there’s another candidate who’s clawed his way to second. He is just as, if not more alarming, than a potential President Trump. I’m talking about Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
While Trump is explosive and obvious, Cruz is like a predator hiding in the bushes. Trump says offensive things because he likes media attention. Cruz says offensive things because he somehow has the commitment of an ideologue and the political maneuverability of a demagogue — he sticks to his main set of extreme ideas, but he’ll up the ante if it suits him. When Trump promised the deportation of 11 million people, Cruz took it a step further to say that none of them would ever be allowed back in either.
In 2013, Cruz helped shut down the government on principle by leading a 21-hour talking marathon on the Senate floor, despite his own party’s protests. And the worst part is that Ted Cruz isn’t crazy. He’s not a zealot for the sake of crowd approval. He’s actually very intelligent. He knows what he’s doing. That’s what so dangerous about him.
In his review of Cruz’s book, “A Time for Truth,” Rolling Stone contributor Jeb Lund identifies Cruz’s Ivy League education and skill as a lawyer as part of the reason he’s able to be so “exceptionally nasty.” Lund finds that Cruz’s abilities as a lawyer have enabled him to frame points “in such a briefly qualifying way as to avoid outright falsehood.” That’s how he operates. He speaks with such careful precision he can spin his words to avoid an outright lie, but he’s nowhere near the truth either.
Cruz raised the ante on Trump with immigration, but just two years ago, he pushed for an amendment to an immigration reform bill that would include a path to legalization for people already in the country. He now claims this was an elaborate ruse — he says he was trying to force the bill to fail, to expose the dishonesty of his colleagues. Was he? It’s impossible to tell. He spoke with impassioned sincerity about the amendment in 2013, and now with the exact same sincerity, tells us he was faking it for a noble cause.
It is well known that the Republican Party establishment hates Trump, but many are actually more unnerved by Cruz. And it’s not just because of his insufferable personality, although it is also well known that anyone who comes within a 50-foot radius of this man usually can’t stand him. His former college roommate, Craig Mazin, called him a “nightmare of a human being.” Mazin joins the likes of George W. Bush, John McCain, John Boehner and Cruz’s Princeton classmates, among others, who have all expressed explicit dislike of the candidate. Likability isn’t everything, obviously, but there are few people who have managed to earn such contempt from people working in politics across the board.
A recent article in The New York Times said some Republican elites would rather “rent the party to Mr. Trump for four months this fall, through the general election, than risk turning it over to Mr. Cruz for at least four years.” Republican lobbyist Charles Black Jr. pointed out that the GOP elites belligerently put up with Trump because he would probably be “scared to death” and ask for help if he actually got the nomination, whereas Cruz would sink his teeth into that position and not let go. No one would be able to control Cruz at that point — a scary thought for both the Republican Party establishment and the rest of us.
Whether it’s threatening to “carpet bomb” the Middle East or offering support for Kim Davis, Cruz only opens his mouth after careful calculation. He speaks with an icy conviction, but it’s one that can apparently change whenever it suits him, and no one can definitively tell what his truth is. He has a long history of fighting conservative battles in the courts and winning. Trump is a loose cannon. Cruz is a missile.
“Mazin joins the likes of George W. Bush, John McCain, John Boehner … who have all expressed explicit dislike of the candidate. ”
That’s reason enough right there to like Ted Cruz.
We got a $20 trillion dollar deficit thanks to those guys and the rest of the GOPe and Dems. Everybody says they are going to get us out of debt by working with the other party. You can see how that’s worked out so far.