Even though Ted Cruz is Ted Cruz, it’s been a tremendous year for him. It all started with him nearly destroying democracy. After he cravenly abandoned his disaster-plagued people to go on a family holiday in Cancun, he was dunked on for days on end. He had several fruitless feuds with Patton Oswalt and discovered that the star of his favorite film despises him. Despite this, he’s been an example of perseverance in the face of adversity, that is, in the face of everyone thinking he’s a loser. Indeed, he’s capping out the year by saying that he, the most disliked person on social media, if not the entire globe, may win the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.
According to Politico, the Texas senator began winding down a tumultuous year by getting down with Brilyn Hollyhand, a 15-year-old conservative journalist who runs The Truth Gazette. Hollyhand is the latest in a long series of smart, well-dressed young Republicans who nearly always bring a briefcase to school. After being beaten by Donald J. Trump in 2016, Hollyhand asked him whether he planned to run for president again.
“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)