Tag Archives: Ted Cruz

Live and Die by Toxic Masculinity

By Robin Bates | Published: May 24, 2021

The GOP has embraced toxic masculinity. “Harry Potter” shows it will come back to burn them.

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America Plagued by Ingratitude

By Robin Bates | Published: March 4, 2021

Friday Red states have a long history of complaining about “blue state bailouts” while sucking up far more blue state money that blue states get from red, (Urban areas, the nation’s major income generators, generally vote Democratic.) Red state Congress members are also famous for denying disaster relief to blue states (think Ted Cruz on […]

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Cruz Is No Willie Stark or Richard III

By Robin Bates | Published: February 24, 2021

Ted Cruz? More Willie Stark crossed with Chevy Chase or Richard III played by Mr. Bean?

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Looking for Non-Existent Voter Fraud

By Robin Bates | Published: January 4, 2021

Trump loves conspiracy theories. So, until she sees the light, does Catherine Morland in “Northanger Abbey.”

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Trump and Gazing into the Abyss

By Robin Bates | Published: May 3, 2016

Ted Cruz said that, if Donald Trump is the GOP nominee, we would be gazing into the abyss. For what this would be like, I turn to Milton, an expert on abysses.

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Ted Cruz as Lucifer, “Squat Like a Toad”

By Robin Bates | Published: May 1, 2016

After John Boehner compared Sen. Ted Cruz to Lucifer, I went looking through “Paradise Lost” to find passages that would apply. I found a particularly good one but, if you ask me, Cruz more resembles Blifil, Tom Jones’s nemesis.

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On the Pope, Walls, and Robinson Crusoe

By Robin Bates | Published: March 6, 2016

Pope Francis recently labeled as “not Christian” those who build walls but not bridges. By this standard, the walls, both literal and metaphorical, being advocated by Donald Trump and Ted Cruz bring their own Christianity in doubt. An examination of the walls build by Robinson Crusoe, however, shows how Christians have rationalized walls.

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Christie as Prufrock & Other Lit Allusions

By Robin Bates | Published: March 2, 2016

Political pundits have been turning to literature to talk about the GOP primaries. This past week saw citations of Shakespeare, T. S. Eliot, Lewis Carroll, and Richard Adams (“Watership Down”).

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Prospero and the Presidential Primaries

By Robin Bates | Published: February 21, 2016

Think of Shakespeare’s “Tempest” as an allegory for the current state of American politics, especially the presidential primaries. It contains visionaries and cynics, orchestrators and disrupters. If Prospero is the island “establishment,” then he enjoys some success but it is qualified.

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