So Ted Cruz goes on Fox News from Fairbanks, Alaska, standing next to Dan Sullivan, and Aishah Hasnie asks him a straight question: why are eight to ten Senate races tied or inside the margin of error? And Cruz gives a straight answer. The party out of power is ticked off, they show up in midterms, and right now the people who hate Donald Trump with every fiber of their being are “energized.” He used the phrase “left-wing transgender witch” to describe them, because it’s October and the man never met a holiday he couldn’t turn into a fundraising email.
Well. You’d have thought he’d declared martial law. The Advocate, PinkNews, Mediaite, the whole cathedral choir started singing in unison: “bizarre,” “rant,” “goes off.” Notice how fast they all had the same word. Bizarre. You could set your watch by it. One senator makes a joke about who’s motivated to vote against Trump and three newsrooms file the identical story with the identical adjective before lunch. But sure, the media is independent and there’s no coordination. And I’ve got oceanfront property in Amarillo.
Here’s the part the papers don’t want you to look at, because it’s the actual news: Sullivan is trailing Mary Peltola in Alaska, 46.2 to 48.5. That’s a Republican incumbent losing in a state Trump carried, and the press wants to talk about Cruz’s word choice. Ask yourself who benefits from that. Every hour the coverage spends clutching pearls over “witches” is an hour it doesn’t spend asking why a sitting senator in red Alaska is underwater. They don’t want you asking that question. They want you laughing at the messenger.
And on the substance, Cruz is right, and the numbers back him whether the experts like it or not. Midterms are always a referendum on whoever holds power, and the out-party’s voters come angry. Cruz said it himself: “This is a close election. This is a real fight, and we cannot take this for granted.” That’s not a rant, that’s a man reading the polls out loud. The Democrats’ whole turnout machine runs on rage at Trump, and yes, the far left of that coalition is exactly the crowd Cruz described. The same crowd that wants men in women’s bathrooms and men in women’s sports, and calls you a bigot for noticing. Cruz calls them witches as a Halloween gag and it’s a national scandal. They call half the country deplorable garbage for a decade and that’s just Tuesday.
Now, do I think Cruz is a master strategist? The man’s been running for president since roughly the Mesozoic era, and there’s a reason his own colleagues have described him in terms I can’t print. But the establishment’s real complaint isn’t the joke. It’s that he said out loud what their own pollsters whisper behind closed doors: the left is angrier than the right this cycle, anger wins midterms, and eight to ten seats are sitting on a knife’s edge because of it. When a Democrat says the base is energized, that’s “enthusiasm.” When Cruz says it, that’s “bizarre.” Same fact, two headlines. Connect the dots yourself, I’m just holding the pencil.
The midterms are coming, the polls are tight, and the people who brought you the last several “trust the experts” chapters are telling you what to be outraged about and when. Maybe listen to the guy who at least admits the fight is close.