Wednesday night convention recap: Their cup of spite runneth over
After two nights of demanding the opposing presidential candidate be put in jail, the crowd and speakers at the mostly themeless carnival of rage and grievance they are still calling the Republican Party’s national convention turned their attention to a less remote target: One another. The theme of the evening was Make America First Again, a theme which apparently wasn't forwarded on to the evening's speakers. And what a strange, strange crew it was.
The big news of the evening was, of course, Senator Ted Cruz very nearly getting booed offstage. The convention audience was incensed at Cruz's non-endorsement of nominee Enraged Summer Squash; his wife had to be escorted off the convention floor as the mood soured, and Cruz may have been saved from being bum-rushed on stage by the video clip convention managers had already scrambled to show as the back of his heels disappeared offstage. Let us not, however, read too much into Ted Cruz's actions. Ted Cruz has been known and despised throughout his brief tenure in the Senate as a man so devoted to self-aggrandizement that he would burn down the party around him without a second thought if he thought it would even slightly boost his own standing. He pushed the party into a government shutdown because it would make him look principled. He regularly condemns his own Senate leaders for not being as pure in their conservatism as he is in them. And yes, he is perfectly willing to go to the party's national convention and give a speech that kicks the rest of that party in the shins if he thinks it will boost his credentials after the current nominee has failed.
None of this is courage or principle. It is what would be expected if you simply assumed the worst of Ted Cruz—that he is, indeed, either a sociopath or at the very least a narcissist of the highest order.
With that, let us dispense with the recap of the rest of the evening. It was not Make America First Again so much as Make America Weird Again. This was, keep in mind, the highest caliber of voucher-fors that Donald Trump could muster. Some of these people are expected to serve in his cabinet if America decides that hell in a handbasket would make for a decent road trip after all.