Beyond Good and Evil: The Virtues of being Ted Cruz

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At 4:30 p.m. on the eve of the caucus in Marion, Iowa, a side door opened to the assembly room of Grace Baptist Church, and Ted Cruz entered along with a chunky bodyguard and his thirty or so of his team members in their signature dark navy blue jeans. Cruz stood quietly as the pastor introduced him. He wore a blue zippered sweater over a button-down shirt, brown leather work boots, and new-looking Levi’s jeans. A few people in the first pew, near the door where Cruz stood, rose to shake his hand. Some handed him campaign posters to autograph. One parishioner passed up a leather-bound Bible and Cruz took time to write something long in the front pages. A second Bible was handed to Cruz, who again paused to write something thoughtful. More posters and more Bibles were passed up, and Cruz didn’t have time to write a message in each Bible, so he started simply signing them on the page that was held open for him: on the fly page, where a book’s author would sign.
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“Stone him!” came a voice from the crowd.

“I’m a true conservative!” Cruz shouted. Suddenly I understood something about Ted Cruz and his followers that I hadn’t clicked into before: The proof of Cruz’s merit, as a candidate, was that he he ought to be at the bottom. The proof of being “a true conservative” is that everyone is against him. Being hated is a mark of entitlement.
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Another step forward in my understanding of Ted Cruz. There are those of us who vote for the candidate we admire (Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders). Some of us go down to the polling station to vote for the candidate whose policies we endorse (John Kasich, Hillary Clinton). Some of us vote for the least of all possible evils, rather than the person we think will actually improve our lives (Marco Rubio). But what gets us into that voting booth more than anything else is the feeling of identification. He’s like me. I feel alienated, excluded, oppressed, even ostracized: Ted honestly confesses the same. I don’t trust the politicians in Washington: Everyone says that Ted, even though he’s a Washington politician, is hated by his fellow politicians. Do you feel excluded? So do I. So does Ted. And he has been excluded. And that’s a good reason to vote for him. He’s one of us.

https://newrepublic.com/article/131409/beyond-good-evil