During Barack Obama’s presidency, Republicans have greatly increased their power at the state level, enabling governments in North Carolina, Wisconsin, Kansas, and other locales to enact legislation that Daily Kos blogger Hunter has called, among other things, “straight-up crooked” and that has caused, among other things, a “financial clusterfuck.”
In a Friday post, Hunter theorized that one reason GOP bigwigs detest Ted Cruz is that “by bringing Republican extremism national, [Cruz has] stripped them of plausible deniability of all those bizarre and hostile and really not-working-out-all-that-great ideas.” According to Hunter, “It's rampant Ted Cruzism, aka tea partyism, that's been shredding [state] budgets and sending companies running.”
From Hunter’s post (bolding added):
One of the essential sights of any election year is the ritual distancing of Republican candidates from the actual, ongoing actions of Republicanism…[I]t's been the party strategy for as long as I can remember, only made sillier as the party ratchets itself rightward in every state, on every issue…
…[T]he leading Republican [presidential] candidates are unusually perfect mirrors of the party factions competing viciously throughout the various states. Ted Cruz is the candidate for theocrats who wish to elevate certain conservative Christian beliefs above all others, and to dismantle whatever federal laws or agencies might stand in the way. Donald Trump is the face of bitter, resentful white men who have internalized the Fox News theory that they are being screwed by brown people but can rely on corporate America to be their wealthy trickle-down saviors. John Kasich is the candidate of the steady establishment, the one who stands for most the same things as the other two but who still holds to the old-school formula that you shouldn't say those things in public if you can somehow dodge doing it…
All three approaches have their adherents in the states, but it's rampant Ted Cruzism, aka tea partyism, that's been shredding budgets and sending companies running. This more than anything may be why national Republicans hate him so very, very much; by bringing Republican extremism national, he's stripped them of plausible deniability of all those bizarre and hostile and really not-working-out-all-that-great ideas.
