But to think of Cruz as just a troll is to miss an important development in the Grand Old Party’s post-Bush foreign policy. Despite the barbs and the major differences between Cruz and Obama, the two politicians both agree that America should be out of the nation-building business.

Cruz is not an isolationist like Sen. Rand Paul, the libertarian Republican from Kentucky who last year filibustered until he got a promise from the White House that drone strikes would not be used against Americans inside the United States. But neither is he quite a neoconservative like John McCain.

Instead Ted Cruz is an American exceptionalist who is wary of remaking the world in America’s exceptional image. “It’s not the job of the U.S. military to do nation building or produce democratic utopias,” he said.

Yet while Cruz does not say the U.S. president should use military force to spread freedom, he does say the president should use his voice to support freedom fighters.