http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/09/ted-cruz-zodiac-killer-memeTed Cruz is the Zodiac killer: the anatomy of a meme gone rogue
A recent poll revealed that 38% of Floridian voters believed that Ted Cruz might actually be the Zodiac killer. Enough said
The year was 2013. It was a more innocent time in conservative America. No primary candidates had declared themselves, Donald Trump was still safely tucked away in a reality show, and Senator Ted Cruz gave the keynote speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, the Republican Lollapalooza.
His speech was mostly forgettable, arguing that Republican success was inevitable if they simply bullied the Democrats hard enough. He salted it with references to pop culture and firmly denied that he was a “wacko bird”, as John McCain had recently alleged. He cracked a weird joke comparing a newly svelte Newt Gingrich to Anne Hathaway’s character in Les Miserables.
Alas, nothing he would say that night would stick to Ted Cruz the way this one small joke, tweeted from anonymous Twitter account @redpillamerica, would:
Red Pill America
@RedPillAmerica
#CPAC Alert: Ted Cruz is speaking!! His speech is titled: 'This Is The Zodiac Speaking'
This, according to the Daily Dot and confirmed by my own searches, appears to be the first time someone on the internet decided to put Ted Cruz’s name in the same sentence as the Zodiac killer’s.
“I think it was a convergence of being a fan of the Fincher film [2007’s Zodiac], the birtherism craze of 2012, and the sociopathic vibe one gets when Ted Cruz walks, talks, and breathes,” the person behind @redpillamerica told me
. “While Trump is a buffoon, Cruz is the kind of guy that makes you want to check the closet, under the bed, and make sure the doors are locked.”You might call that one man’s opinion. But if you frequent certain precincts of the internet lately, you’ll see that it has blossomed into quite a craze.
