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Cruz

This sort of feedback loop of ever-more-extreme political purity tests is a familiar enough phenomenon. First, you identify a demon, and spend a few years whipping up a hysterical frenzy over the threat it poses. You want to tie it to a few key words that you can repeat in a derogatory, contemptuous tone of voice, over and over, until the very signifier evokes such a feeling of loathing in your audience that anyone associated with it is contaminated. Let’s call it Thing X. Now, most people will think your goal here is to drum up a successful campaign against Thing X and against your opponents, who support it, but this is at most part of the mission. Thing X itself may or may not be terribly important, and your opponents are your opponents; there’s not much you can do about them. What is crucial here, though, is that once you’ve firmly established your followers’ revulsion towards Thing X, you can use it to annihilate your “allies”—also known as “rivals”—by accusing them of insufficient vigilance against Thing X.

Margaret Soltan, September 25, 2013 4:16PM
Posted in: kind of a little weird

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2 Responses to “Cruz”

  1. MattF Says:

    “No enemies to my right!” and all that. I’ll just note that I can recall a Government 101 lecture by Clinton Rossiter about ‘enlightened self-interest’. Used to be a small-c conservative belief.

  2. tamade Says:

    To the mention of vilification of “thing X,” and condemnation of those who don’t vilify that thing with sufficient passion, as totalitarian impulses: Cruz, in his 21 hour self-suck, said that the conservatives who didn’t stand with him were like Neville Chamberlain. John McCain, of all people, called him out on it: “The people spoke: They spoke much to my dismay. But they spoke, and they reelected the president of the United States…”

    At this point, opposition to appropriating the funds for Obamacare is opposition to the democratic process that allowed it to come to pass. Even if one isn’t yet convinced that Ted Cruz is a cynical opportunist and assumes his crusade to be in earnest, it’s still tantamount to destroying democracy to save it.

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