There was so much to say about Senator Ted Cruz after his bizarre line of questions at the Senate confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson last week. Many, for good reason, focused on how the episode showed that Cruz has transitioned from an "unctuous asshole" to an aggressively deranged demagogue. As Ed Kilgore pointed out in The Intelligencer, during the hearings Cruz outdid himself "with the most disgraceful display of thuggish senatorial behavior I've personally seen in my many years of watching the upper chamber."
Cruz shouted, asked inane questions, seemed to search Twitter for himself, and even went after his fellow senators. It was such a grotesque performance that it was hard not to want to comment on the spectacle. But after we finish being distracted by the confirmation hearing car wreck, Cruz's behavior opens up a door to a far more significant takeaway — one that offers Democrats a strong strategy for midterm victory, if they pay attention.
