Born Rafael Edward, reared in Canada, called lil’ “Felito” most his life, know to us as “Ted”, “Lyin’ Ted” to the man whose boots he licked, Senator Cruz shouted from the back of a pickup the weekend before the insurrection he claims he did not foment, “We will not go quietly into the night. We will defend liberty.”
The Donald’s nickname for him may prove most astute. There’s a lot of cognitive dissonance present with Ted. A self-proclaimed anti-establishment Tea Party American patriot, he didn’t renounce his Canadian citizenship until well into his second year as a US Senator, at age 44, a wee bit before he announced his Presidential candidacy. Irony, his father regularly spouted untrue birtherism against Obama.
When Ted announced for President he said “It is a time for truth.” But how truthful has Ted been?
He made his name as an uncompromising conservative, someone John McCain called a “Wackobird!” His career to date has not proved him statesman, more like “gratesman,” rubbing colleagues the wrong way, like his 2013 filibuster against Obamacare, reading Cat in the Hat in the Senate, helping shut down the federal government for 16 days. He ran for President in 2016 to repeal Obamacare, and voted in 2017 to get rid of it, yet utilized it to obtain health care for his family when his wife quit her job and they lost their healthcare.
About Trump, he called him a “pathological liar,” “a rat”, a “trainwreck”, “utterly amoral”, a “sniveling coward” and “can’t be trusted” in 2016. Then in 2017, Cruz became one of his staunchest defenders, doing his bidding, through the Capitol attack, backing Trump’s claim of voting fraud. He did so notwithstanding watching 60 cases brought to contest the election, not one producing evidence of fraud, and in most Trump’s own lawyers not bothering to allege any.
So, “come on, Ted,” where’s the fraud? It’s Cruz himself.
Recall that Cruz, a Harvard trained lawyer who clerked for the Supreme Court, knows better, especially after a Trump appointee deemed this election the safest ever, and Trump’s Attorney General, William Barr, often acting more like Trump’s personal attorney, found no credible evidence of voter fraud.
And yet, Cruz, without proof, led the effort to require the Senate to appoint a federal electoral commission to conduct an emergency audit of state voting because, as he said “tragically 39% of Americans believe the election was rigged.” And who made Americans believe this?
We need look no further than Trump, and Cruz, as they engaged in Don and Ted’s Most Excellent Anti-Democratic Adventure. This, notwithstanding most all Senate Republicans, including Mitch McConnell, had given up contesting the election a month earlier. Yet Cruz played along as Trump tried to shakedown the GA Secretary of State the first weekend in January, and continued to do the President’s bidding through the moment of insurrection, doing serious damage to our democracy with deadly consequences, pushing a federal election audit that had no chance of passage.
So where is the fraud? It’s Ted, who knew he was defrauding the public from the Senate floor. Unswayed by the riot, Cruz joined seven other Republican senators that night in refusing to certify Biden. And, while the chaos of the riot spiraled out of control, he sent an automated fundraising text: “Ted Cruz here. I’m leading the fight to reject electors … unless there is an emergency audit of election results. Will you stand with me?” We should not, but we should do more than text him back our dissatisfaction.
In the days since the attack, Cruz has tried to distance himself from Trump, calling the attack “despicable and horrific,” blaming Trump’s rhetoric for contributing to the violence, while insisting Ted was not to blame, yet failing to call for Trump’s resignation, instead he’s continued to play to the Trump base: “The president’s language and rhetoric was reckless. And it was not helpful. That’s not what I was saying.” Denying he was in any way responsible for making democracy itself a betting chip in playing his own political hand, he’s clearly smoking his own dope. He’s abandoned Lincoln’s concept of government of, by and for the people and forgotten his sacred oath to “support and defend the Constitution,” ignoring the need to tell truth to both power and the people. With his false flag political stunt, Ted has forfeited our trust. He helped lead a treasonous mob to the Capitol door, welcoming them to that point, but won’t take any responsibility for what they then did inside.
Cruz claimed he was merely “debating matters of great import” in the Senate, although that amounted to making false allegations that there were voting irregularities meriting federal intervention. He helped turn Trump’s “Big Lie” into an insurrection, claiming the election was “rigged”, despite a total lack of evidence. He egged on the insurrection from the Senate floor, saying: “I want to take a moment to speak to my Democratic colleagues. I understand your guy is winning right now.” That wasn’t a call for collegiality, but rather a call to action to those assaulting the Capitol. By nurturing the mob’s delusions, he helped foment insurrection.
Critics rightfully say Cruz is 100% complicit for backing Trump’s fraudulent claims. The Houston Chronicle, his home town paper, demanded: “Resign, Mr. Cruz, and deliver Texas from the shame of calling you our senator.”
What was he thinking? Why do this? Cruz’s cost-benefit analysis concluded that catering to the president was a benefit to Cruz’s own presidential aspirations well worth any costs to American democracy. His objections thus were motivated by a desire to outflank Senator Josh Hawley in the 2024 race, positioning himself as heir apparent to the Trump base. Former Republican Senator Corker observed: “Everyone can see through, and look: understand {he’s} running for president.”
Ted’s was a Faustian bargain in deed and fact. Notwithstanding his federalist principles, Ted asked to throw out state electoral votes, as Chip Roy (R-TX) said, in an attempt “to unconstitutionally insert Congress into the center of the presidential election process.”
Ted of course has been eyeing a shot at the White House, so stoking Trumpists with the red meat of fraudulent voting claims served that aim. But if Trump’s rhetoric results in more violence, Cruz will have blood on his hands that can’t be washed out, and a political albatross around his neck that should sink his presidential aspirations like an anchor. As some commentators note, Lyin’ Ted’s political fortunes are now inextricably linked to the man he once reviled, but whom he followed into breaching the rule of law and our democractic norms. This was indeed a stunt too far, beyond the pale, and Cruz has become what ails the body politic and needs excising.
There’s a petition circulating to strip him of his TX bar status for violating Texas’s rules of ethics, that no lawyer shall “engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation.” Some 11,000+ lawyers and law students have signed. Others are circulating a petition asking him to resign, stating “despite dozens of failed court challenges and no evidence of fraud whatsoever,” Cruz claimed, straight face and indignant, the election results of battleground states were suspect. A MoveOn.org petition states “Sen. Cruz has blood on his hands. This was a political game where he put his future opportunity to run for president above the people of Texas. He has lost the right to represent Texans in the U.S. Senate.”
Even members of “Cruzworld” are disgusted by his choosing to back Trump’s absurd claims of widespread election fraud. Their view – he sold his principles down river, in fealty to Trump. Their former boss is unrecognizable to them, and they ask “was he always this way,” was his unwavering “constitutional conservatism” an act, to be discarded for political expediency, tossing the Constitution and federalism to the wind? That would explain how he could be so craven as to try to cancel the votes of millions, defiling his prior principles of states’ rights, federalism and constitutionalism.
Where and when did he lose his principles? Many point to the 2016 Republican National Convention when he urged Republicans to “vote their conscience,” but was booed, heckled, and rebuked by Texas delegates for his betrayal of Trump. That’s when his knees got wobbly and he sold out, and his blind ambition kicked in, as he started to play to Trumpists. His cold calculation was – follow the Don John wherever that took him. Since 2017 Cruz has been Trump’s #1 bootlicker, kneeling at Trump’s altar, shinning his shoes. He dismissed Trump’s vile personal attacks on him when Trump called his wife ugly and accused his father of being part of the plot to kill JFK. Cruz since has curried Trump’s favor, even agreeing to represent him before the Supreme Court in a scurrilous post-election lawsuit. Cruz abandoned his conservatism for political expediency, proving he’d do just about anything. Don’t let him.
His close personal friend, Chad Sweet, who served as his 2016 campaign chairman, broke with him after Cruz objected to electoral votes, saying that due to Cruz’s undermining of our democracy, he “must be denounced!”
A Harvard law classmate called him out in a Dallas Morning News op-ed: “You know… there is no evidence of voter fraud or misconduct… more than 60 courts [including the Supreme Court] have considered all valid arguments and ruled against them… if successful, the ultimate outcome of your actions — the federalization of elections to the detriment of states’ self determination — runs entirely counter to your once-held conservative principles… You chose to undertake an incredibly crass and irresponsible political ploy. You decided … you personally are better off to mislead the very voters you represent. You let raw ambition blind you to the irrevocable damage you are doing to party and nation… You have lost your way… stop baselessly misleading Americans.”
There is no doubt Cruz aided and abetted Trump, amplifying his voter fraud lie, and in doing so he helped foment an insurrection that may prove a modern storming of the Bastille, but one against a democratic election of, by and for the people. Doing so, Cruz fell into a political trap of his own making for any future presidential bid. Because when you go all in with Trump, and sell your soul, there is no road back from Perdition. Cruz has now revealed himself to be a craven, calculating pol who will do anything, even incite an insurrection, to advance his own power agenda. For a guy alleged to be a savvy smartass, he’s proved pretty dumb, falling for his own bull. I mean, my goodness, even Mitch McConnell conceded the election long before the insurrection.
He now faces GOP charges that he incited violence in the name of political opportunism. Senator Toomey (R-PA) accused Cruz of “directly” undermining peoples’ rights to elect their leaders. Mitt Romney (R-UT) said he “will forever be seen as being complicit in an unprecedented attack against our democracy. [The] whole antic … is … built on a lie… To the degree that perpetuating this lie helped incite the crowd, that’s a responsibility that Ted … owns, along with Donald Trump.” Senator Murkowski asked Cruz, “Has ambition so eclipsed principle?” And the take of conservative Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV): “There’s no way {Cruz} cannot be complicit in this. {He} can’t just walk away saying, ‘I just exercised my right as a senator?’ I don’t know how you can live with yourself right now knowing that people lost their lives.”
The consistent thread here – everything Trump touches, dies, and with Cruz’s infatuation with Trump, carrying the water for him, so too has Ted’s presidential aspirations. A true principled conservative, George Will, says Cruz’s insurrection against constitutional government will be an indelible stain on the nation, and he will have to deal forever more with wearing a scarlet “S” as a seditionist. Will notes Trump needed others in his party to defend and support him, make excuses, go silent, attack his critics, advance his conspiracies, and pretend his lawlessness and impeachable offenses were perfectly fine. He needed men to check their morals at the door to carry out his agenda. And who led the “Sedition Caucus,” the “Dirty Dozen,” none other than Rafi, lil’ Felito, Cruz, a man who knew better, and who does not deserve to continue representing the great and diverse people of Texas. Let’s let Cruz learn the consequences of his power play, his deal with the devil. Strip him of his committee assignments, launch a recall, censure him, but most definitely vote him out. It’s true – 2024 cannot come too soon.
And as for the calls of healing, there can be no reconciliation without full accountability. Trump enablers must be shunned and voted out. Ted thought his was just a little bit of political theater, playing to the Trump base, that democracy was a game, not a way of life that merited sacred treatment and protection. Because Cruz committed the fraud of telling the nation that the election was stolen, diminishing democratic norms and the tradition of the peaceful transfer of power, he needs to pay for his fealty to Trump over democracy. His blow to the soul of the republic in pursuit of his own personal ambitions, what fellow Republican Senator Ben Sasse equated with pointing a loaded gun at legitimate self-government, acting as democracy’s arsonist, should cause him to pay a high price. If there’s justice, then he should forfeit his right to serve the democracy he sought to undermine.
And how did it all end? – with looters in the Senate chamber, rifling through confidential notebooks, mumbling to themselves, “I think Cruz would want us to do this; I think we’re good.” It’s time to tell Ted it’s not all good, and to take his brand of demagoguery and slink back into the dark night from whence it came.
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rwb historically speaking 