It shouldn't be surprising—at all—that conservative talk radio is pumping for Ted Cruz in the presidential race. He is the ideal of what that particular interest group has been peddling as the solution to America's woes. He doesn't mind shutting down the government, even if he gets nothing in return for it. He would never think about agreeing to anything the "other side" agreed to. He's the consummate far-right twit with a chip on his shoulder and a burning desire to set fire to things for the sake of doing it; who else in the race could be counted on to truly wreck the government that he believes so urgently needs wrecking?
Talk radio shifted into Cruz defense last week after Trump called the Texan “a little bit of a maniac” in the Senate. Mark Levin, a former Reagan administration official dubbed “The Great One” by Sean Hannity, took to social media to lambaste the poll leader for insulting Cruz.
“We have a guy who has stood up to Mitch McConnell, who is viciously attacked in every liberal newspaper, every liberal outlet, by the establishment. Who led the fight against Obamacare. And he’s referred to as a ‘maniac?’ I’m sure Mitch McConnell loved that,” he said. “I’m sure the Wall Street Journal editorial page loved that. He’s a ‘maniac?’”
Mind you, he led the fight against Obamacare—and in his entire career, got nothing for it but a government shutdown because every other thinking person in Washington is still perfectly aware that unless you plan on garroting the opposition party in the streets your Deep Principled Beliefs still need to get passing votes in the House and Senate and the signature of whoever's sitting in the fancy round-walled office across the way.
So yes, sending most of the federal workers in America home without paychecks for a while and closing parks and monuments and some damn important government offices because you've got a poorly thought out half-plan that at no point had any possibility of success would count as being a "maniac." But Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Hannity and Levin and the rest have been straight-up demanding a "maniac" for years now.
I don't know why these people have soured on Trump, though. Now there's a man who talks big and doesn't have one damn idea how he'll do any of the insane things he says he'll do. Is it because he just doesn't love them enough?
