Just a couple of days ago, the nation watched as Senator Ted Cruz was forced to grovel at the feet of Tucker Carlson because of his “poor” choice of words when referring to those involved in the January 6th riot. Senator Cruz seemed to have been fighting for his life when one watched the video. He begged and pleaded that he had not used the word terrorist to describe what Carlson had deemed “patriots” and argued back and forth with the Fox host, that he would never describe the protesters it’s in that term. Cruz said he had often called people who assaulted police officers terrorists and when looking back through his Twitter feed I did find serval cases of Cruz being consistent in what he said. It was more disheartening and pitiful when the public watched a once strident and promising Senator, virtually fall flat on his face during an interview with a man who has proven to be so ignorant to most issues. So what happened to Ted Cruz? Where did the Tea Party fire that once burned so brightly within him go? What happened to constitutional conservatism that he held so dear? Well if we want the answer to that, we must go back a few years to his campaign in the 2016 Republican primary.
In 2016 Ted Cruz had built his campaign almost entirely on the platform that was created by the Tea Party wave during the Obama years. Limited Government, a return to Reaganomics, further devolution of powers from the federal government down to the states, and a less hawkish view on foreign policy. Cruz had proven a viable option for being the Republican nominee (and my personal choice as well next to Rand Paul) but Cruz had a problem with forming lasting friendships and alliances in the Senate, even members on his side disliked him (a great example being John Boehner) and Cruz had been seen as being too week on immigration. He also had a major problem that every other Republican had, and that was Donald Trump. Trump had made his way into the spotlight by not just being an outsider but also by using brash and sometimes childish talking points, such as insulting candidates or saying things just to get attention. Trump's brashness and rude remarks put many republicans off balance in their party and made them look as if they couldn’t even take a joke, and Cruz was no exception. Senator Cruz’s wife was even attacked by Donald Trump as being an ugly woman and the Senator had no way of replying without feeding into the Trump rage.
This though was not the end for Senator Cruz. Like his colleagues, every republican fell one by one to the unmerciful hordes of Trump voters in the primaries. Many stood beside him on the ballot despite still having grave doubts about their new nominee but of course, he beat Clinton in a stunning victory. After this Cruz soon became just another Republican pushing a conservative agenda through congress and was often a vocal supporter of the president just as most others did as well. But then something happened. At this point, I turn more towards speculation on why Ted Cruz is now where he is. The beginning of his decline began shortly after the 2018 midterms. In his re-election race, Cruz was up against the fresh-faced Beto O’Rourke. Democrats were eager to push Cruz out of office and Beto into the national spotlight. After a long and hard-fought campaign, Cruz only managed to win by a little over 2% of the vote in a state John Cornyn won by nearly 8 points.
This is where I suspect Cruz begins to rethink his politics. Rather than being sensible and believing that Cruz may have pushed further to the right and instead decided to move more towards the Reaganite positions of the past, Cruz takes a different approach. Instead, Ted must’ve decided that he did badly because of the fact he wasn’t enough like Donald Trump, and that he hasn’t done enough to please Trump supporters in his state. Many of my colleagues have agreed with me that they too saw Cruz take a massive change after 2018 and we all suspect this is the very reason why. After the 2018 election, Cruz starts leaning more towards the Trump populist wing and slowly begins to agree more and more with Trump on positions he had previously disagreed with in the past. I am not sure if there is a way for tracking these things but I can almost guarantee you that if there was a chart to track the views on members of the senate with those of the president, then Cruz and Trump would be almost identical post the 2018 Midterms.
In a National Review article written by Charles Cooke, Cooke writes that “Ted Cruz tries to be all things to all people, and ends up pleasing no one.” I find this to be an extremely accurate description of the Senator from Texas. Since 2018 Cruz has actively tried to maintain his limited government views while simultaneously advocating for more regulations or even breaking up big tech, he tries to remain a principled constitutionalist, while continuing to back Donald Trump who has actively disregarded the second amendment and also has advocated for more presidential powers. Now we must continue to watch a promising Senator continue to grift until there is no one left to please. Oh, how the once principled conservative has fallen.
It's funny.....I stopped by looking for an actual report on what the RINO's are doing to our country.....and I find most articles are actually attacking everything conservative EXCEPT the RINO's. This substack is a fraud.