Jeb Bush

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Bully with a Pulpit

It is true that bullies play the victim card better than anyone else. We have seen Donald Trump bully Jeb Bush and John Kasich for their lack of swagger and then whimper that the media does not credit his poll numbers, which before this week, had been impressive. Wednesday night we saw Ted Cruz loudly complain that the media had stacked the questions against Republicans at the debate after treating the Democrats with great deference at their debate. “This is not a cage match,” he proclaimed.

If the debate was not a cage match, more the pity for Cruz. He excels at bare-fisted combat. That’s how he abruptly rose to power as a first-term U.S. Senator. Parrying a question about the federal debt limit, he went after the CNBC panel for their adversarial questions of the candidates and then offered to address the question after expending his time on the rant. It is easy to attack the media in a public debate, because if the media defends itself it yields to the charges of partisanship. The panelists have to absorb the punches and keep the debate moving. So attacking the media is both bullying and playing the victim at the same time.

The whole maneuver was staged to be spontaneous, but clearly a calculated move to take the high ground against an opponent who couldn’t fight back. Cruz had carefully noted the questions to each of the panelists and turned them into
travesties, as he launched into his tirade: “Donald Trump, are you a comic-book villain? Ben Carson, can you do math? John Kasich, will you insult two people over there? Marco Rubio, why don’t you resign? Jeb Bush, why have your numbers fallen?”
If Donald Trump had ventured that strategy, Cruz would probably have taunted him, “Hey Donald, if you don’t like the heat, stay out of the kitchen!” But it was Cruz’s turn to play the victim.

There is something unseemly about accepting an invitation to debate then trashing the host at the first opportunity. Not only was it an offense to hospitality, it was a deliberate provocation of the carnivorous audience that approved of any rough handling of the media. It was political theatre designed to lionize a bully. The crowd hooted their approval.

The bully survives on short-term approval. Even the New York Times rated Cruz’s performance as victorious the next day, but the Times is the media and has to take a punch. The polls will also boost Cruz, because he looked powerful, beating the Republican whipping boy on national television.

But the bully will eventually attack the wrong victim and be disgraced and rejected. That is the inevitable fate of Ted Cruz. He is probably smart enough to know it himself. But he will keep sucker-punching until someone feints and exposes his brutality, and he will claim he has been maligned or fallen victim to “political correctness.” That’s another term bullies like. When they are caught being merciless or insensitive, they cry “political correctness” and slink away.

Watch for it in the next round of Republican cage-fighting.

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Hotheads on the Loose

A “hothead” is a citizen who acts and votes in anger on political issues. The hothead herd is driven by conservative talk radio, and it reminds me of sports talk radio, a community I have suffered more regularly. The voices on talk radio are sometimes reflective, but more often raving and ranting about whatever pushed their buttons that day. The topic really doesn’t matter, because the rant will out, whatever its target.

Hotheads are fond of firing people: coaches, general managers, judges, Speakers of the House. We saw them in action on Tuesday in a brief attempt to oust John Boehner, whose worst offense was trying to hold his party together. It was a small loutish contingency who mostly voted for themselves in an effort to shake up the House leadership. They expect to influence policy by giving the raspberry to leaders who use words like “compromise” and “consensus.”

Hotheads could be Democrats, but currently they are largely Republicans, because the Republicans exploited anger to get elected in 2014. There is nothing like anger to get people out to the polls in a midterm election year. Republicans are fond of stirring the pot on issues like gay marriage, amnesty for illegal immigrants, and environmental regulation to get hothead voters in their corner. It definitely worked in 2014, but the consequences are dire.

If you live by the hothead, you die by the hothead. You have a constituency that will squabble to the last punctuation mark in legislation. You have obstructionists who really don’t want anything accomplished in Congress unless it is saturated with their views. You have representatives who can not speak of legislation unless it is tainted with the names of their foes, like “Obamacare.” Politics is very personal for hotheads. There are always enemies, not rivals or dissenters.

Talk radio and Facebook have given the herd a megaphone. It is the democratic privilege of the herd to be heard, but it is toxic and enervating to listen to them. I know, I know, just turn to another station or unfriend them on your Facebook page, and your problem is solved. I usually listen because it seems close-minded to shut them off, but eventually I have go somewhere to wash my hands or clear my mind. You can tell I am not thoroughly cleansed, because I am writing this blog in the key of rant.

Fortunately hotheads are not elected to high office, because they offend too many people. They can be Congressional representatives, because even hotheads deserve representation, but they are often confined to local office and fringe political organizations. However, they have been known to reach as high as Vice President of the United States.

Inevitably hotheads will be on the loose this year. First they have to be sure their favorite targets will be hired or fired as coaches (learn to scowl like Jim Harbaugh) and their current enemies are fired as mayors and police commissioners (watch out, Mayor DiBlasio and Commissioner Bratton). Then they will need to harass the front-runners for the Presidential races (Hillary and Jeb, prepare for a mudbath). As judges continue to allow such obscenities as gay marriage and clemency for low-level drug offenders, they will suffer nicknames and recall campaigns. It will be a good year for recalls, reprisals and spirited rage.

And sometimes it takes a good rant to get something done. I am experimenting with that hypothesis right now, but I don’t see it as a long-term strategy. I say, Let it out, and then let it go. Now breathe and unclench your jaw. Now reach for the dial and change stations. . . . That’s better.