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I think that everyone—literally everyone—knows that Ted Cruz is a natural born citizen and thus eligible to become president. The whole issue is a complete crock. And yet, ever since Donald Trump brought it up, you can hardly swing a dead cat without running into someone jabbering about it. Even John McCain and Nancy Pelosi have gotten into the act. What’s going on? Here are some possibilities:
- We are all bored. We are so bored that we’ll literally talk about anything. This is the true genius of Donald Trump: he recognizes how bored we all are and is willing to
find stimulating topics for us to chatter about. - Everyone loathes Ted Cruz. They loathe him so much that they’re willing to discuss this ridiculous meme as a way of hurting him, even though they know perfectly well it’s ridiculous.
- We can’t help ourselves. It’s the “someone is wrong on the internet” syndrome: when Trump suggests Cruz doesn’t qualify for president, we have to explicate it. We have to research it. We have to find constitutional experts who like being on TV to cite endless case law. In the end, we have to explain why it’s wrong. It’s what we do. This has lately earned the moniker “Voxsplaining,” which is a little unfair—it’s not as if Vox invented this phenomenon—but only a little.
- We remain under the misguided notion that anything Donald Trump says is automatically newsworthy because he’s the Republican front-runner.
That’s all I could come up with. Are there other possible explanations?
