Story after story about entrenched ivy-league establishment icons, of both political parties, running to the nearest camera or journalist to declare that they hate Ted Cruz has become something of a phenomenon. There is something about Ted Cruz that the ruling class fears. They’ve tried to destroy Ted Cruz since he was elected to the Senate, but for all their smear campaigns, the Washington Cartel has been helpless to stop the rising popularity of Senator Cruz. As I often write, fear plus helplessness is a perfect formula for hatred; and boy, do they truly, deeply hate Ted Cruz.

When asked to comment on the candidates vying for the Republican Nomination, President George W. Bush had nothing bad to say about the field, except when it came to Ted Cruz. The always well-mannered former President said of Cruz, “I just don’t like the guy“. This was a bit of a shock, because this was the first person that Ted Cruz hadn’t undermined with the truth that, without being prompted, lashed out at the junior Senator from Texas.

Talking with Andrea Mitchell, former Senator and runner up to President Clinton, Bob Dole echoed President Bush’s sense that he’s perfectly fine with the Republican field, except for Ted Cruz.

Senator and runner up to President Obama, John McCain, has mocked Ted Cruz as being a “Wacko Bird“, and has often been furious with Senator Cruz for refusing to get in line with the limp-handed approach of Senate Leadership toward President Obama’s transformational agenda.

In July, Senator Orrin Hatch lambasted Cruz, though not by name, after Senator Cruz called out Senate Leadership on their underhanded plot to save the Export Import Bank (which, as we now know, was in the works, and has recently been resurrected).

For these elected officials, it would appear that the driving force behind their hatred of Cruz is that, unlike them, when Cruz says he’ll fight for a bill, he actually fights for the bill. When he says he’ll do everything he can to repeal Obamacare, he means, he’ll do everything he can to repeal Obamacare. These other Senators say they’ll fight these battles, but they have no intention of really accomplishing anything. They hold show votes and dog and pony shows and nothing ever gets done. They fund every program they pretend to be against and send President Obama only the bills they know the President agrees with and wants to sign.

Senator Cruz’s refusal to lie to his constituents and to the American People makes the rest of his congressional colleagues look bad. Voters in Arizona and Utah my well be wondering, “If Ted Cruz isn’t afraid to stand up to the Obama Agenda, then why does my Senator seem so afraid”? Maybe its’ because Hatch and McCain have no intention of living up to any of the promises they’ve made to you. Ted Cruz, by actually putting up a fight, made the cowardice or complicity of Republican Leadership obvious to every last one of their conservative constituents.

But that’s only a part of the story.

This morning, David Brooks wrote a seething article called The Ted Cruz Establishment, wherein I believe I have discovered, not the political, but the psychological motive for the establishment’s hatred of Senator Cruz. His piece was not intended to reveal this motive, but rather to reveal the multitude of established establishments that exist within and surrounding Washington D.C. What struck me as intriguing was Ted Cruz’s Ivy-League education. The high-dollar, upper-class world inhabited by Ivy-League graduates has produced an entitled culture inculcated within most of the establishments. Democrat and Republican elites usually share an ivy-league education in common. They run in the same circles, have the same connections, and despite belonging to differing political parties, generally accept the same worldview and reality. Those without ivy-league educations usually kiss the tails of those who do.

This is why it is sometimes difficult to tell our political parties apart. These people were all educated together and they are all trying to use our government to accomplish the same purpose – to protect their class and their friends and their system of government from the rabble known as the American People.

Senator Ted Cruz was supposed to be one of them. In fact, because he was “one of them” he was able to move up through their ranks and hold prestigious positions. Yet, Ted Cruz never quite fit in. I believe what these elitists hate the most is that they feel that Ted Cruz looks down on them. Ted Cruz doesn’t respect them because they have money, or because they went to Harvard, or because they are men of power. Ted Cruz is motivated by principle, not class. Ted Cruz has a political agenda and a love of constitution that overrules loyalty to his ivy-league brethren. This “counter-establishment” that Mr. Brooks loathes has recognized that Senator Cruz is exactly what they’ve been waiting for – Mr. Brooks also knows that this counter-culture of political insiders is more powerful than his establishment buddies realize, fueled by the freedom, conservative, and constitutionalist movements amongst the populace and composing the backbone of the grassroots of the party.

Ted Cruz is an ivy-league elite who, despite all indoctrination and peer-pressure, has continued to pursue his passion for principles derived from the enlightenment and from the United States Constitution. He doesn’t care about being liked by the upper-class, to whom he was destined to be indentured. He demonstrates the hypocrisy of both the Democrat and Republican establishments and has pulled back the curtain for the American People. The elites fear the harm done to their power when the American People understand exactly how corrupt they are in wielding it and they have been utterly unable, no matter how many of them slither up to microphones to denounce him, to hurt his popularity with the American People.

Fear plus helplessness equals hate.

Originally published at PendletonPenn.com