Ted Cruz wants the faithful at Liberty University to imagine all the people having Ted Cruz as their president. (I would file that under, “imagine there’s no heaven”.) If John Lennon were alive today, it’s a fairly safe bet he’d be appalled that his song of peace was referenced over and over by presidential hopeful Ted Cruz as a rallying cry for a single practice, intolerance of Other, and desires for unlimited gun ownership.
On the positive side, it was a very well staged announcement at Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA. It must be noted, however, that the mega church meeting in which Ted Cruz launched his presidential campaign is a weekly, required convocation at the University. Students are required to attend three such convocations a week. All candidates announce they are running in front of friendly crowds, but this presidential candidacy announcement brought it to a new level of political staging. During his speech most sat politely and applauded on cue. The loudest moments – as expected given Liberty University filed an anti-Obamacare lawsuit – followed whenever Tea Party Ted was bashing President Obama.
President Ted Cruz: Imagine (and shudder in horror)
I ask all those people who are left of hard-right in America: Can you imagine Ted Cruz as president? I can imagine it, and it’s frightening. Most real Americans don’t want to go back to the times of the wild west when only white men who owned property could vote, women were basically owned by their husbands, and justice meant shooting one another at high noon on muddy streets lined with horse troughs and hoop skirts. I, for one, really like indoor plumbing. With all the tax cuts and de-regulation Ted Cruz and the Tea Party claim they want (I say claim, because experience has taught us that 99% of the time an average Tea Partier has no idea of the practical consequences of their political fire-eyed desires), I’m not even sure America would be able to have that anymore! Save your sewers: don’t vote Ted Cruz. Do you like a flushing toilet? Don’t vote Ted Cruz… he’d be a president who would flush the country down one. Once again: just because it’s fun to shout that you hate government does not mean it’s good policy. The extreme-right wing has no understanding whatsoever about what it takes to actually make a country work – they simply enjoy yelling and showing off their firearms because it’s fun to be part of a mob. Ted Cruz is the mob’s leader.
In his speech announcing his candidacy, Ted Cruz asked the audience to imagine all sorts of things, many of which we already have. Ted made it explicitly clear he is coveting the evangelical vote, more so than any other national candidate I’ve ever seen. Outside of his overly-dramatic life storytelling, his message was the same old red meat for the hard right GOP base who claim they love America more than everyone else, but hate that America has moved into the future and left them behind. So they want to “take it back”, insofar as really meaning “take it backwards.” While Tea Party Ted gave a good speech (though I personally cannot stand his, “I am basking in your glory of me” speaking style), we see once again that the extreme right wing is stuck in the same circular debate with itself. There’s nothing new… the very definition of modern conservatism: nothing new.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz asked us to imagine everything from the sacrament of marriage, to abolishing the IRS, to having a president who isn’t lawless and gives amnesty (so says the former Canadian dreamer). In Tea Party land, they love that because it joins them together to focus their one common bond: hate. Hate the establishment and hate Obama. That’s what they do. It’s who they are. It’s the food the nourishes them and keeps the Tea party alive.
Ted Cruz Cannot Win A General Election
Senator Ted, you’re not in Texas anymore. Yes, when Ted Cruz go to rallies he sees cheering crowds (and loves it a bit too much, I might add), but they are the minority. Enough republicans dislike hard right positions to doom Senator Cruz’s presidential bid.
He has a good chance to win some early primaries – the republican primaries that are like circuses. But like many republicans who run for president, he’s not running to win. He’s doing it to boost is ego and increase his income. Ted Cruz has positioned himself as the hero of the hyper-conservative Republican Party base, which is one of the biggest money-making machines in America. That political positioning makes it impossible for him to win a general election. He even knows that. Everyone except the extreme right wing base knows that.
Given Tea Party Ted Cruz was at Liberty University, he had to throw out his “repeal every word of Obamacare” line, which made the crowd happy. It also looked very impressive, but in this case he was speaking to the choir leaders of the choir. Literally. Beyond the tired and ill-informed Obamacare bashing and Hobby Lobby boosting, the two largest applaud lines were to stand unapologetically with Israel, and for the right to bare arms. Again, these are old and tired Tea Party applause lines that are generally not based on facts. People cheer simply because it feels good to join mobs who hate something.
Without facts and reasonability on his side he can raise a lot of money from the right-wing echo chamber, but for people who exist outside that world he’ll have a difficult time. That’s how he won his seat in the Senate, but that doesn’t win general elections. The policies that Ted Cruz claims he’d implement get cheers and jeers from the hard right, but they’re not possible, and some are borderline insane. Ted Cruz is a rallying cry. That’s it. It’s not possible for him to get the funds a national candidate needs. Many within the Republican Party already work against him because Ted Cruz gives the GOP a sour tinge and a bad name; whackobird.
Ted Cruz cannot get voters outside of the hard-right base. Just because it feels good to shout about unlimited gun rights and abolishing the IRS, that doesn’t mean it’s good policy for a huge country like the United States. Most Americans know that. The Tea Party doesn’t… but that’s just another one of those pesky facts that the extreme right wing hates like climate change and Ronald Reagan’s real policy record.
Published: by | Updated: 07-27-2015 11:37:45
