It’s been a big year for Ted Cruz, even considering that he’s Ted Cruz. It began with him almost destroying democracy. Then he was dunked on for days on end after he cravenly abandoned his disaster-plagued constituents so he could go on family vacation in Cancun. He got into multiple failed feuds with Patton Oswalt and learned that the star of his favorite movie hates his guts. And yet he’s been the very model of resilience in the face of adversity, which is to say in the face of everyone thinking he blows. Indeed, he’s ending the year by announcing that he, perhaps the most unliked person on social media or even the planet, could clinch the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.
Ted Cruz actually thinks that he is going to get elected President of the United States in 2024. This is too good! Interview this morning. pic.twitter.com/EpUELXaLtO
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) December 22, 2021
As per Politico, the Texas senator started to wind down a hellish year by sitting down with Brilyn Hollyhand, a 15-year-old who runs the conservative rag The Truth Gazette. Hollyhand, the latest in an endless line of precocious, suited young Republican who almost certainly brings a briefcase to high school. Hollyhand asked him if he planned to run for commander-in-chief again, having gotten crushed by Donald J. Trump in 2016.
“Absolutely. In a heartbeat,” Cruz replied. He then hatched a patently weak theory for why he could nab a nomination hotly pursued by the likes of twice-impeached one-termer Trump and pandemic mishandler Ron DeSantis.
“You know, I ran in 2016. It was the most fun I’ve ever had in my life,” he said of a time when he was relentlessly mocked by the winner, who called his wife ugly and accused his dad of killing JFK. “We had a very crowded field. We had 17 candidates in the race — a very strong field. And I ended up placing second.”
That last part, Cruz argued, is why he could be running against Biden, Kamala Harris, or whoever the Democrats put up in a couple years. “There’s a reason historically that the runner-up is almost always the next nominee,” Cruz told the teen conservative. “And that’s been true going back to Nixon or Reagan or McCain or Romney that has played out repeatedly. You come in with just an enormous base of support.”
On top of Cruz’s many other accomplishments in 2021 is playing a part in the deadly Capitol siege, in which violent Trump supporters tried to overturn the election they favorite president handily lost, and even hang his vice president. Senate Democrats weighed expelling he and Josh Hawley, who also played a part and who then voted against certifying the election anyway, despite the fact that a number of their colleagues and White House staff were nearly killed. In other words, 2024 may finally be his year.
(Via Politico)