Conservative critics like to carp about the New York Times and National Public Radio being woefully out of touch with, oh, about half the country. Events over the weekend demonstrate why those criticisms, while often tedious, continue to have merit.

Consider: In his current quest to out-Trump Trump, Ted Cruz has begun referring to illegal immigrants as “undocumented Democrats.” This is hardly an original epithet; the phrase has been a staple of the Rush Limbaugh program for at least five years. (The joke migrated to a Jay Leno monologue in 2013 as well.) If there’s any story here, it’s that Cruz is making a strategic decision to appeal to dittoheads by lifting Rush’s language. That is significant insofar as while Limbaugh has not endorsed Trump, he has tended to be very, very friendly towards the real estate mogul on his radio show.