Ted Cruz: The GOP's Self-Made Monster--Theatrics Over Defunding Obamacare Will Tear GOP Party Apart

Over the past couple of days, as I've watched Ted Cruz capture the political world's attention and drive the GOP's self-defeating strategy on the budget and the debt limit, I've tried to think about what is the best metaphor to describe his extraordinary political rise – from freshman Texas senator to ideological lodestar of the Republican party.

He's the Republican's Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.

For those not familiar with the reference, the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man is "the form of the destructor" in the 1983 film, Ghostbusters. He seems harmless. After all, it's a giant marshmallow with a jaunty sailor's cap. But in reality, he is a 60ft anthropomorphized destroyer, who is chosen (inadvertently) to wage the movie's final showdown between the forces of good (the ghostbusters) and the forces of bad (Gozer).

Over the past several decades, Republicans have cultivated the party's most reactionary, uncompromising and extremist base of supporters. They have portrayed government as a deeply nefarious and destructive force; they have fetishized ideological rigidity; they have derided and demonized compromise of any sort; they have destroyed the party's moderate wing and even drove conservatives out of the party for not being conservative enough.

In the end, Republicans have no one to blame but themselves for their current crisis. Ted Cruz was created by Republicans who persistently ramped up the extremism of their attacks on government and on Obama. That reached a point where Cruz's brand of crazy, heartless, morally wanton, uncompromising conservatism is now the default position of the party. Unfortunately for Republicans, unlike the Ghostbusters, there is no escape from the monster they created.


http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/26/ted-cruz-obamacare-budget-showdown