Ted Cruz once grew ragey over a Fight Club edit in China and received comeuppance as a result. That tends to happen when he takes on pop culture, but he cannot help himself, as evidenced by his campaign against Barbie. Ted has been raging all week against the candy-colored movie because he’s convinced that the film is communist propaganda, and he even took that argument to Fox News, where the Texas lawmaker admitted that he hasn’t watched the movie, but he’s only seen “the stupid map.”
That’s a reference to the quirkily drawn map of the world includes controversial dash marks. Some right-wingers consider this to be the film’s assertion that China is all-powerful over the South China Sea, and this argument even led to the Fox News chyron of “Ted Cruz Declares War On Barbie.” As if this couldn’t sound more like a parody, Ted told Jesse Watters, “[T]hey’re trying to kiss up to the Chinese Communist Party because they wanna make movie selling the movie in China.”
Well, Ted’s anti-Pink crusade has generated a lot of pop cultural coverage, and that led to a Vanity Fair article (by Katey Rich) that included this kicker: “For anyone who was on the fence about seeing Barbie but enjoys sticking it to Ted Cruz, your decision has just been made.” Ted saw the publication’s tweet that contained this kicker, and he responded with a sarcastic “TLDR”-style edit: “We love Chinese communists!”
Shorter @VanityFair:
“We love Chinese communists!” https://t.co/vPG6bfJSw3
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) July 21, 2023
He’s so mad. It’s so silly. And that makes me wonder about a possible repeat of that time that Cruz got caught flying to Cancun during a deadly Texas ice storm. What if Ted had to go see Barbie for any reason at all? (He does have two daughters.) And what if someone spotted him doing so while wearing a silly disguise? Keep your eyes peeled is all I’m saying.