Supreme Court Justice Ted Cruz? No, Wait, President Cruz? No, Wait, Senior Senator Cruz.

Ted Cruz resolutely demurs when offered (four times now) a seat on the United States Supreme Court. And why shouldn’t he? He dreams of the presidency, but should probably stick to podcasting.

Welcome to another installment of Life Its Ownself. If you like what you read, please 1) hit the Like button at the bottom of this installment, 2) subscribe to this newsletter, and 3) tell your 1,000 best friends to read and subscribe. Also, feel free to comment below. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

But first, your moment of Zen … The sun sets over the Del Norte Mountains west of Marathon, Texas, on April 22, as Venus descends through the darkening skies.

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Friday, April 24, 2026

The commentariat and the chatterbots of Washington, D.C., have lately begun speculating that Donald Trump may, er, encourage the resignation of the U.S. Supreme Court’s two oldest members, Clarence Thomas (77) and Samuel Alito (76) soon. Trump’s reasoning (a phrase I almost never use) is that the GOP is likely to get shellacked in this fall’s midterm elections, to the point where it might even lose the Senate, an outcome unthinkable even a few months ago. If one of them dies, falls ill or retires between next January and 2029, the Democrats could frustrate Trump’s hopes of appointing a fourth person to the Court, a modern record.

Unspoken in all this argle-bargle is the very real fear that the next President will be a Democrat, owing mostly to the ways in which Trump has pretty much f*cked up the entire country in his second term. Even if Thomas and Alito can hang on for the next couple years, there’s a good chance they will not make it through that four-year term, at the end of which Thomas will be 84 and Alito 83.

(As a side issue, their age is not dispositive of their ability to serve: there have been seven SCOTUS judges who served beyond the age of 83. And SCOTUS has no mandatory retirement age, despite the self-evident wisdom of such a policy.)

So, Thomas and Alito have no interest in retiring yet, but there’s still plenty of time between now and next January, when a dreaded Democratic majority might take office. And just in case, Trump and his minions have been giving thought to their replacements.

Cruz for SCOTUS?

One of Trump’s favorite possibilities is Ted Cruz, the junior senator from Texas. Trump praised Cruz for a SCOTUS vacancy as recently as January – but Cruz says he is not interested. In an interview at a Wall Street Journal gathering, Cruz had this to say:

“A principled federal judge stays out of policy fights and stays out of political fights. If I were a judge, I would do that. I don’t want to do that! I want to be right in the middle of political and policy fights, and if you want to do that, the right place to do that is in elected office.”

He’s right, of course: He has transformed himself from a respected advocate into a political animal and, in a stunning turnabout from 2016, a complete toady for Trump and Trumpism. Meanwhile, Congress has become like the appendix of the American body politic: once important but now vestigial, a sign of how far we’ve fallen. Cruz puts more energy into his podcast than into his senatorial duties.

Cruz for President?

But don’t mistake his dilly-dallying as a senator for a lack of ambition: Ted Cruz is fixated on being the GOP nominee for president in 2028, and everyone in Washington and Texas knows it.

Cruz wants to run as a smarter, more relentless, less compassionate (!) Trump, and has amassed a spotless record of Trumpian perfidy marred only by his opposition to the Iran war/not-war.

Cruz was last re-elected in 2024, which means he has a free shot in 2028 – even if he loses a presidential bid, he will still be a senator. Even if he didn’t, he could run under the “LBJ Law,” which allows a Texan to run for senate and President/Vice-President simultaneously.

Observers who think Cruz does not have a chance should recall that he came in second in the 2016 GOP nominating contest, driven by his hard-headed conservatism, energy and rhetorical skills. The party handily dispatched mainstream conservatives like Jeb Bush, John Kasich and Marco Rubio as it drifted into the Trump fever swamp. Cruz was the only one that could keep up with The Donald. The GOP he sought to helm in 2016 is even nuttier and more obstreperous now.

Who’s On Dreck?

Which begs the question: Who are the party’s serious contenders for 2028? J.D. Vance is hoping to be named successor by Trump. Rubio has been a loyal member of the President’s team, but he is subtly creating daylight with the President on Iran, and the forthcoming Cuba adventure may prove just as disastrous as Iran. And, of course, Trump himself will not let us dismiss the possibility he will run for a third term.

The Bulwark’s Jonathan V. Last wrote an intriguing essay Monday about the 2028 GOP presidential field. TL;DR – he thinks the surprising – and possibly unbeatable – entry in the field will be Donald J. Trump, Jr.:

[Trump, Jr.] is in double digits in all but one of the polls and his head-to-head record against Rubio is 5–1–1. …

If DJTJ were to run, he’d inherit the Trump political organization and lists. He’d probably be able to finagle access to Trump’s campaign war chest,² but even if he couldn’t, he’d have made enough money to self-fund.

DJTJ’s biggest advantage is that if he decides to run, Vance and Rubio will have their knees cut out from under them. Neither would be able to oppose him. …

Does this [the Trump crime family] seem like a group of people who would willingly let go of revenue streams that are measured in the billions?

By the way, Last’s think piece doesn’t even mention Ted Cruz, much less Greg Abbott, who also entertains presidential fantasies.

JVL’s analysis has a certain dramatic flair to it, but it depends on one assumption that will be tested in the next year or so: That Donald Trump will still own and control the Republican Party, lock, stock and barrel, in 2027 the way he does now.

You know, the way the Bush dynasty once controlled the GOP.

Ted Cruz’s presidential pathway does not depend on his receiving Donald Trump’s blessing and endorsement, although he’d surely like it; there are too many other people (Vance, Rubio, etc.) in the way. Instead, Cruz is watching (while staying out of) the meltdown of MAGA to see what scraps he can pick up: People who oppose forever wars, or like free trade, or even those who think we’re not being harsh enough on immigrants. Out of these disparate and frustrated MAGAts, maybe he can build his own Frankenstein monster.

Senior Senator Cruz

Cruz clearly has an uphill battle in front of him. The best Ted might be able to hope for is that Ken Paxton beats John Cornyn in the May 28 runoff, which means that Ted will become the senior senator from Texas in January, 2027.