Historian Richard Hofstadter described the use of “heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy” in American political life. Hofstadter called this phenomenon “the American paranoid style,” built on the perpetuation of conspiracy theories and the use of apocalyptic prose. “[The] demand for total triumph leads to the formulation of hopelessly unrealistic goals,” Hofstadter wrote. “Since these goals are not even remotely attainable, failure constantly heightens the paranoid’s sense of frustration.”

While this style has been employed by both the right and the left, one place it finds current expression is in Cruz’s appeals to conservative and Tea Party audiences. The freshman senator’s willingness to stand up and fight for “hopelessly unrealistic goals” was perhaps clearest during his 21-hour-and-19-minute Senate filibuster to defund Obamacare in 2013. "I will say standing here after 14 hours, standing on your feet, there's sometimes some pain, sometimes some fatigue that is involved,” Cruz told the Senate chamber. “But you know what? There's far more pain involved in rolling over, far more pain in hiding in the shadows, far more pain in not standing for principle, not standing for the good, not standing for integrity."

Although Senator Cruz’s speech had no serious chance of derailing the Affordable Care Act, his hours-long rebuke of Obamacare resonated with supporters. “I’m proud of our good friend Ted Cruz, who is doing what he promised voters he would do, which is fight at every turn to protect American families and businesses from the President’s disastrous health care law,” wrote Tea Party Express Chairman Amy Kremer afterwards.

Last week, on Late Night, Seth Meyers chided Cruz on the filibuster. “How’d it go?” Myers asked. “It actually went fabulously, because right now, Obamacare has 37 percent approval rating and as a result of Obamacare, Harry Reid and the Democrats lost the Senate, and in 2016, I think we're gonna see a very different election result," Cruz said. Whether or not Cruz’s rhetoric actually helped the GOP in 2014, it’s clear that Cruz’s virulent opposition to Obamacare (and virtually any other Obama policy) has given him a strong base of conservative support ahead of a possible 2016 presidential campaign. Cruz came in third in last month’s CPAC straw poll behind Rand Paul and Scott Walker.

Senator Cruz has also followed another tenet of Hofstadter’s paranoid style with his use of selective evidence and subtle innuendo to insinuate possible widespread liberal—and often foreign—conspiracies. “One of the impressive things about paranoid literature is the contrast between its fantasied conclusions and the concern with factuality it shows,” Hofstadter writes. “It produces heroic strivings for evidence to prove that the unbelievable is the only thing that can be believed.”