Cruz Waiting on Trump for Prez Bid

“The race in ’24 will very much hinge on whatever President Trump decides to do. President Trump is going to make his decision whether or not he runs, or nobody else is going to make that decision for him. And I expect that everyone else will react accordingly when he does make that decision.”

— Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who “has never really danced around his ambition — including now that his party is in a holding pattern waiting to see whether former President Donald Trump runs again,” NBC News reports.

Trump Made Americans Care About Politics

“Love him or hate him, President Donald Trump made most Americans feel strongly about politics in a way no politician has in our lifetimes. Record numbers of Americans felt strongly favorable or unfavorable toward Trump during his time in office. (The strongly favorable and unfavorable was 71% in a Fox News poll last month, for instance.) … Trump’s presidency drove historic turnout and record donations to political campaigns in a country whose voters have often shown a disinterest in politics.”

Harry Enten

How Never Trumpers Became Ever Trumpers

“Pragmatism, compromise and even ideological agility have always been part of politics. But what is happening now is dangerous. The rationalizers aren’t just turning against their own principles; many are turning against fundamental norms of democracy. The constant rationalization has made them unrecognizable. Unlike the Republicans who were Trumpian even before Donald Trump, the rationalizers have forgotten that what they now believe they once made up.”

Steve Israel

The Ubiquity of the ‘Trump Effect’

“Donald Trump is impulse-driven, ignorant, narcissistic and intellectually dishonest. So you’d think that those of us in the anti-Trump camp would go out of our way to show we’re not like him — that we are judicious, informed, mature and reasonable. … But the events of the past week have shown that the anti-Trump echo chamber is becoming a mirror image of Trump himself — overwrought, uncalibrated and incapable of having an intelligent conversation about any complex policy problem.”

David Brooks