Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

I was promised a recession.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

The words do not have to be perfect.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

Republicans don’t trust women.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

You are here: Home / Politics / Politicans / Cruz-ifiction / Excellent Read: “The GOP’s Default Messiah”

Excellent Read: “The GOP’s Default Messiah”

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gop jump from trump to cruz toles

(Tom Toles via GoComics.com).

Jeet Heer, at TNR, asks whether Ted Cruz “can knit together a coalition of purists and pragmatists”:

… In January, before he pulled the plug on his own presidential campaign, Senator Lindsey Graham spoke for many Republicans when he said the choice between Cruz and Donald Trump was “like being shot or poisoned. What does it really matter?” Yet by the end of March, Graham had come around to accepting Cruz as the more palatable evil. “He’s not completely crazy,” Graham noted on The Daily Show, explaining why he joined the “Ted train.” Returning to his older metaphor, Graham added, “Donald is like being shot in the head. You might find an antidote to poisoning, I don’t know, but maybe there’s time.”

The backhandedness of Graham’s endorsement illustrates the key problem Cruz will face even if he wins in Wisconsin. Hardline conservatives are Cruz’s core base. But to move beyond his current status in second place and secure the nomination, he needs to attract many more people like Graham, who have a history of animosity toward him. In effect, Cruz’s path to victory means combining two completely opposed constituencies. And they just happen to be constituencies that he’s worked hard to set in opposition against each other.

If Cruz is able to pull off this seemingly impossible balancing act, it’ll be thanks to a quality he rarely gets enough credit for, his wholesale cynicism. Cruz is so surrounded by animosity that it is rarely noted that there are two contradictory accounts given as to why, beyond his personality, he is so odious.

Many liberals and moderate conservatives see Cruz as a fanatic, a true believer who is willing to enact extreme policies like the government shutdown in order to advance his dogmatic vision. This was the Cruz portrayed by Jeffrey Toobin in a 2014 New Yorker profile titled “The Absolutist.”

Yet some Republicans who share Cruz’s professed conservative politics don’t see him as an ideologue at all. They view him as a cynic who craftily adopted their worldview out of self-interest, to win over the faction he needs to win the Republican presidential nomination…

… It might be in Cruz’s best interest to drop a few hints to the establishment that he’s not the purist ideologue that some have made him out to be, that he’s more Tallyrand than Robespierre, more crafty Stalin than true-believing Trotsky. This would mean encouraging others to have an even lower opinion of his morals, but a higher opinion of his pragmatism. Such an overture to the establishment might overcome any lingering doubts the Lindsey Grahams types have and make them truly eager to join the “Ted train.” …

Reader Interactions

49Comments

  2. 2.

    A Ghost To Most

    Tom Toles is a national treasure, as is Mike Lukovich.

    Man that club is creepy; I half expect Mike Myers to come dancing out.

  6. 6.

    JPL

    @Baud: If Trump won, the repubs would impeach him. If Cruz won, we would have privatized everything and I’d be buying health care in Bama. Also thanks for that nineteen percent sales tax.

  7. 7.

    SFAW

    I feel so reassured that the treasonous mofos known as the Rethuglican Partei are going to be happy to support The New Messiah, even though they all claim to hate him, etc., etc.,

    For a (figurative) moment or two, it almost seemed as if some of those treasonous motherfuckers had actually developed something approaching a conscience. Had they (actually, not pretendly) done so, I might have needed the ol’ defibrillator, wot wif the heart attack from the shock. Fortunately, those treasonous motherfuckers did not disappoint.

    I am unable to quantify how much I hate those treasonous motherfuckers.

  9. 9.

    Kay (not the front-pager)

    OK I didn’t even take time to read this post. I just had to relate that I just heard on Rachel Maddow that Bernie Sanders says Hillary Clinton is not qualified to be President. We officially reached the point where he needs to be stopped. I have been supportive of his run. I have thought that he was a decent person, someone I could support if he won the primary. As the primary has gone on I have become increasingly uncomfortable with what looks like his self-righteousness and sanctimony. I was disturbed by his lack of preparation during his interview with NY Daily News. But this is a whole other level of wrong.

    I hope this makes sense. I’m writing on my 7″ tablet which makes proof reading difficult. I was just so outraged I had to share.

  10. 10.

    SFAW

    @Kay (not the front-pager):

    I just had to relate that I just heard on Rachel Maddow that Bernie Sanders says Hillary Clinton is not qualified to be President.

    Did he bother to tell us peasants why that is, in his opinion, the case?

  12. 12.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @Kay (not the front-pager): Talking about it on the previous thread. There was also something about Hillary’s “gun thing”.

    I’m gonna go quote Hamilton at the wall for a while.

  13. 13.

    Nelle

    Just came to post the same thing, Kay. Time for this to end. I was so pleased when both candidates were saying that either of them would be better than any of the Republicans. Now Sanders is writing the Republican’s political ads. I too have become increasingly concerned that he is the dog who caught the car and doesn’t know what to do with it, in that he didn’t ever expect to get this far. But now that he is this far, he has swallowed some of what his most vociferous supporters were selling. Not good.

  15. 15.

    JPL

    @Kay (not the front-pager): I mentioned earlier that on CBS Evening News he was asked about mothers who lost their children in Newtown upset with his gun control views. He answered that Hillary was responsible for the deaths in Iraq and all the lost jobs due to trade deals. So much for empathy. He really has become unhinged.

  17. 17.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    She’s unqualified because she’s a woman. Everyone knows that. This isn’t women’s work.

  20. 20.

    dr. bloor

    @redshirt: Very high school. A room full of total losers who are absolutely convinced they’re going to get in the pants of that cute campaign volunteer by the end of the night.

  24. 24.

    SFAW

    @efgoldman:

    …and don’t call me Shirley.

    Sometimes you can be scary.

    In this case, it’s because you wrote what I was thinking of writing. If you’re thinking like me, then I’m a little concerned.

  25. 25.

    Mnemosyne

    @Kay (not the front-pager):

    Sigh. I’m not that surprised. I think it was at this same point in 2008 when Hillary started in with the “hard-working white people” stuff. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail soon.

  28. 28.

    schrodinger's cat

    I posted this is in the morning thread, posting it again for evening folks.
    A better club to hang out at than with Podhoretz.

    Its from a great movie I saw last week, Queen, streamed it from Google play. Its about a dorky and sheltered young woman from Delhi dumped the day before her big fancy wedding. She decides to take their honeymoon trip alone and discovers herself along the way.

    Kangana Ranaut, in the title role was awesome, she won the National and the Filmfare awards for acting that year. Her Rani was achingly real.
    Hard to believe that she is the same person who played the reigning super model in Fashion, she is the first model on the catwalk.

  30. 30.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Sanders is right:

    Uppity women like Hillary just don’t get it.

    She just doesn’t have the right necessities for the position.

  31. 31.

    rikyrah

    The only thing that is sincere about Rafael is that he had a true believer. That is what he has used to get his votes. Now, I doubt that they will be happy to have him change on a dime. But, it will be amusing to watch

  32. 32.

    SFAW

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Just imagine how concerned efg is right now.

    As well he should be.

    If he truly were to start “thinking” as I do, I would be particularly worried that the Voices desert my head for his.

  34. 34.

    Redshift

    Meh. I’ve felt much better since I decided to refuse to be outraged by anything the candidates it their supporters say.

    Yes, it was a dumb thing for Bernie to say, and makes him sound a bit desperate. Saying she’s “unqualified” because she has big campaign donors is basically saying “I’ve defined the qualifications for president so that I’m the only one who’s qualified.”

    But it’s not going to provide fodder for the Republican, because that never actually happens. Of the Bernie people who are hardcore anti-Hillary, some of them will follow through, but not a lot, and nothing he does now is likely to change that number much.

    All sound and fury, signifying nothing.

  36. 36.

    Miss Bianca

    @Baud:

    I’d much rather defeat Cruz than Trump.

    At a quick glance, I thought you’d said “detest”, rather than “defeat”. Then I realized it works either way. Baud! for the win!

  39. 39.

    Linnaeus

    @Redshift:

    Yes, it was a dumb thing for Bernie to say, and makes him sound a bit desperate. Saying she’s “unqualified” because she has big campaign donors is basically saying “I’ve defined the qualifications for president so that I’m the only one who’s qualified.”

    If you look at Sanders’s full quote, it’s really not that much different than what he’s been saying about Clinton for quite some time now. It’s also not that much different than what the Clinton campaign has been saying since Sanders’s New York Daily News interview, although they’ve been more circumspect about it.

  40. 40.

    Chris

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    He is the most horrific of all the scary clowns in the FAIL parade, that is the GOP nomination race.

    Correct.

    It’s taken me a long time to decide who the worst candidate in the Republican field is, but it’s him. Hands down.

  41. 41.

    MomSense

    It really bothers me when the NRA and their supporters say we shouldn’t play politics with a tragedy like Sandy Hook.

    Bernie said this today to an MSNBC correspondent.

    We are not playing politics with a tragedy,Bernie. The process for preventing tragedies like Sandy Hook is political. We need politicians to listen to us and to pass legislation to protect our children and communities.

    This isn’t a fucking game we are playing.

  42. 42.

    David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch

    Even Hillary hating Lawrence O’Donnell, who openly supports Sanders, is saying Sanders is wrong has shot himself in a foot.

  44. 44.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Main page is badly broken in Firefox. Can’t scroll for beans.

    Comment threads seem to be working fine.

  47. 47.

    Feebog

    If the polling is even close to correct this will be over on April 25. Yes, there will still be a few primaries left in May and June, but if HRC comes out with over a 300 delegate lead after April 25, we are done.

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