Phew, right? Donald Trump did not win the GOP primary in Iowa. He came in second after Ted Cruz, and the relief about the fact that the wall-planning, Muslim-banning Donald failed to secure the first place in the Hawkeye state was widely audible.
But it is misleading. Ted Cruz would make as terrible a president as The Donald. And here’s why:
- Ted’s strategy to defeat ISIS is essentially one fat, terrible war crime
Donald Trump’s plan to fight the Islamist terrorist group ISIS famously includes killing not only the terrorists, but also their families. Ted Cruz has a similarly brutal plan: he wants to carpet bomb ISIS “into oblivion”, testing whether “sand can glow in the dark”. What Cruz doesn’t tell you is that such an agressive military campaign would inevitably cause death and harm to thousands of civilians. Even the targeted, limited airstrikes carried out under the Obama administration may have killed up to one thousand civilians, according to some estimates. It is not hard to imagine how the death toll would look like with Ted Cruz as the commander-in-chief. Cruz has since attempted to make his statement sound less terrible, denying that his strategy would involve bombing cities. But, as the Daily Beast noted, carpet-bombing is, by definition, broad and not targeted and undoubtedly involves harming innocent civilians (which is also why Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, the commander of the US-led anti-ISIS coalition, condemned Cruz’s proposal, calling it “inconsistent with our values”).
2. He will rip up the progress made with Obamacare
Ted Cruz will rip up the Affordable Care Act if elected president, and he is proud of that. But recently, his pledge did not look too good on him, as he faced the reality of what repealing Obamacare would mean. On January 30, during a rally in Hubbard in the run-up to the Iowa primary, an Iowa voter confronted Cruz. He talked about his brother-in-law, who worked as a barber in Arizona, and never had health insurance – until he was able to obtain it under an Obamacare health exchange. He learned that he had terminal cancer. What, the voter asked Cruz, was he going to replace the ACA with? Unable to provide an actual answer, Cruz revisited right-wing talking points about Obamacare. He repeated the claim that the healthcare law was a ‘job-killer’, a statement rated “Pants on Fire” by PolitiFact. Cruz doesn’t get his facts straight about Obamacare, and he has no plans to replace the health coverage that millions gained under the law. Under a Cruz presidency, they will be left standing in the rain.
3. He doesn’t think we need to do anything about the gun violence in this country.
Ted Cruz loves guns. So much the NRA awarded him an A+ rating – and their support does not only come in form of favorable grades: the NRA gave $36,229 for his 2016 campaign. But when it comes to firing up his voters about the Second Amendment, Cruz has some trouble sticking to the facts. His claim that California Senator Dianne Feinstein (D) publicly announced her wish to round up guns earned a ‘False’ rating by Politifact. He is a fan of the conspiracy theory accusing President Obama of plotting to take away Americans’ guns. Cruz was also given Four Pinochios from the Washington Post for his false claim that a gun buyback program in Australia drove up the sexual assault rate. And Cruz argued that the right to own guns was a “Constitutional right to protect your children, your family, your home, our lives…” If Ted Cruz is worried about “protecting children”, as he says, maybe he should worry about the around 100 children killed every year just in accidents involving guns and support basic gun control measures rather than demonizing such common-sense legislation as an attack on the Second Amendment.
4. “Pro-life” Ted Cruz is determined to get rid of legal abortion, but loves the death penalty.
Ted Cruz is known for his radical anti-abortion stance, and he pledged to get rid of legal abortion if elected president – not by overturning the Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade that made abortion legal, but by using the 14th amendment to extend ‘personhood’ protection to fertilized eggs. His “pro-life” position is interesting, giving his fanatic love for executing people. When he worked as a clerk for the Supreme Court, Cruz was reportedly obsessed with the death penalty. Cruz represented Texas, fighting for the state’s right to execute the mentally ill, rapists who did not kill anyone, and a man with an IQ of 78 – cases in which even supporters of the death penalty would have trouble defending the execution. (While this sounds like Cruz has a strong opinion, don’t count on consistency: as a lawyer representing a man wrongfully sentenced to death, Cruz argued that the criminal justice system could not be trusted and had failed)
5. He has weird friends. Very weird friends.
Duck Dynasty‘s Phil Robertson campaigned for Cruz in Iowa. Robertson used the stage to rant about same-sex marriage as “evil” and calling for “ridding the earth” of marriage equality supporters. Cruz, who came on stage after Robertson, then had the nerve to call the man “an extraordinary human being”. Jeez
6. His relationship with the truth is problematic, to say the least.
Cruz has been caught spreading lies about his position on immigration – misrepresenting his position and flip-flopping, over and over again (now the Canadian Latino likes to boast a radical anti-immigration stance). He spread falsehoods and conspiracy theories about Dianne Feinstein, about Obama’s gun plan, about Obamacare, gun control in Australia, and he tried to portray his plans to carpet-bomb ISIS as anything BUT carpet-bombing. As a lawyer, he vigorously fought the execution of a client, now he is a rabid fan of capital punishment.
This man is extreme, and consistency and honesty are certainly not his quality. A President Ted Cruz would commit war crimes in Syria and Iraq. He would reverse progress made under Obama and leave millions un- or underinsured. He would roll back on Roe v. Wade and women’s reproductive rights. He would refuse to lift a finger to stop the gun violence epidemic that is killing our children. No, this man ain’t better than Donald Trump. Not a bit.
