Speaking of Donald Trump's paid harem: Ted Cruz, the firebrand Texan once-and-never-again candidate for president, got face-planted by Donald Trump in 2016 when Trump branded "Lyin' Ted" on his flabby flank, insulted his family, and accused Cruz's father of being a conspirator in the Kennedy assassination. Ted swore vengeance. Now, in Time Magazine's annual 100 Most Influential People issue, Ted gets payback: he surrenders.
It's telling that Cruz can't point to a list of Trump's legislative wins or diplomatic victories to say just what makes him so influential. All Ted asks of Trump's presidency is that it make enemies and dismay, disrupt and distract. The only measure of his success should be that it "scares the heck out of those who have controlled Washington for decades" because "for millions of Americans, their confusion is great fun to watch". It's a show, in other words. Trump is the sort of gimmick character that producers insert into a tired TV program after it's exhausted all the good ideas.
Cruz slides past the fact that Trump has exposed the sandy foundation of Conservatism. Republicans and their press have betrayed their own values about character, rectitude, prudent foreign policy, fiscal restraint, Constitutional fidelity, etc., etc., and now they authenticate themselves and their candidates by measures of rage, nihilism, and fatalism. Cruz is so beaten down that he excludes himself from the people who "controlled Washington for decades"--he's one of them--and, now that he's a sniveling collaborator with the Visigoths, he feigns delight in watching Rome burn.
Just who is "scared" is plain to see. Republicans are fleeing their own House seats as their prospects for reelection dim. Trump is besieged by his own compounding legal disasters. And at home, Cruz faces Congressman Beto O'Rourke, whose fundraising is outpacing Cruz's. Cruz should also note that he is detested by his own party and his colleagues in the Senate, so they won't be helping him win back his seat. Whatever bounce he seeks from sucking Donald Trump's tangerines is questionable too--imagine Trump campaigning for Cruz in Texas after his efforts failed in Alabama and Pennsylvanian.
This issue of TIME is always a celebration of celebrities celebrating celebrity—people who might be entertainers or captains of industry or scientists or uncategorizable Jennifer Lopez-types with nothing else but being Jennifer Lopez required for them to be jammed in your eye, all writing raptly about each other while mere mortals get to envy them, all tossed in a blender together and pureed into a weird smoothie of fame for fame's sake. Trump belongs among them not because he has done the nation or history or even himself any good, but because he’s being covered 24/7 for sullying the White House, wrecking the GOP, destroying his own brand names and leaving a trail of Russians, unpassed bills, unbuilt walls, unpaid debts, paid women, Russians, betrayed partners, betrayed women, sordid lawsuits, sordid lawyers, sordid sex, Russians, and millions of Americans watching it with “great fun” while the promises he made them get forgotten and a Blue wave bears down on the GOP.
Ted Cruz is scared. It's great fun to watch.