Senator Ted Cruz may be the pied piper of the government shutdown, but it's the House Republicans following behind him like some sort of maniacal conga line who have actually thrown the wrenches in the gears. And none of them is congaing quite as maniacally as Tyler Congressman Louie Gohmert.
Gohmert has long been a favorite of the crazy wing of the Republican party, so much so that they attempted to draft him to challenge John Cornyn for his Senate seat, but his leading role in the defund-Obamacare fight has turned his torrid love affair with the Tea Party into a hardcore porn flick.
And so in recent days you have Gohmert leading a pack of veterans through the barricades of the shut-down World War II Memorial, calling John McCain an Al Qaeda supporter, and comparing Obama to Al Capone.
See also: The Tea Party Wants Louie Gohmert to Take John Cornyn's Seat in the Senate
So far, Gohmert's strategy of convincing people that Obama is responsible for the government shutdown by saying wacky stuff has failed. He's betting that's just because he hasn't had enough leverage.
Enter the debt ceiling, which the government will reach in three days if Congress doesn't act. Failing to increase the federal government's borrowing limit, which would allow it to continue paying its debts, would plunge the country into economic chaos and could precipitate global recession. Gohmert is already busy laying this all at Obama's feet.
"There is no reason we should ever, ever default on our debts unless the president and the treasury secretary conspire to make us default," he said last week.
On Friday, he upped the ante, telling the Values Voters Summit without apparent shame that allowing the country to default would be "an impeachable offense by the president."
That trillion-dollar coin is starting to seem like sound strategy after all.
