Donald Trump has taken righteous heat for the violence at his rallies. Telling his violent supporters that he will pay their legal bills is outrageous. Predicting riots if he isn’t nominated is likely to be taken as a coded message by his supporters. Trump tells his crowds that protesters are bad people and get what they deserve. He does bear some responsibility for his rallies and the general decline in discourse during the 2016 campaign. Some evangelical leaders are pretty upset about it (see the video of Al Mohler and John MacArthur below).
Earlier today a reader sent a link to Steve Deace’s public Facebook page where he carries on the low level of discourse. Given Ted Cruz’s embrace and praise of Deace and Deace’s representation of Cruz, does Cruz have any responsibility to disavow comments like this? Just one will illustrate:
It was Cruz’s surrogate Glenn Beck who called John Kasich “delusional” and a “son of a bitch” recently because Kasich wouldn’t bow out of the race with not a peep from Cruz.*
My point is not that name calling and crude humor doesn’t happen in politics or any other domain as far as that goes (cue Mark Driscoll’s William Wallace III). However, if blame is going to be assigned for the crude rhetoric in the campaign, then let’s cast a wider net. Furthermore, I can understand the passions which give rise to these outbursts. For myself, I am beyond angry at the choices in front of me and specifically worried that my party might actually nominate someone who wants to commit the nation to mass deportation of 12 million illegal immigrants. However, if I ever resort to sexual innuendo and crass name calling, please readers call me out on it.
Mohler and MacArthur on the campaign.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4UnERAWW60[/youtube]
I want to hasten to add that my objection to Trump and Cruz isn’t primarily a moralistic one. I do object to the gutter politics and rhetoric but the larger problem is their approach to the presidency and policies. They promise things that are never going to happen and act as if we don’t have a legislative branch. I am not sure their followers understand how a bill becomes law. Trump seems like he can wave a wand and it will happen and Cruz has not displayed the skills for compromise, and in fact seems to hold such skills in disdain.
*Although not the subject of this post, I also think Cruz has responsibility to correct the errors of those who speak on his behalf at his rallies such as Glenn Beck. Beck’s misrepresentation of history in his stories about George Washington should have resulted in a public acknowledgement and apology from Beck and Cruz. Beck stopped telling that particular false story only after Huffington Post called him out.
Tag: glenn beck
Ted Cruz Surrogate Glenn Beck Says John Kasich is Delusional and a Son of a Bitch
Ted Cruz likes to say that he doesn’t get down in the gutter and engage in name calling with his political opponents. Although Cruz has had his moments, he apparently is content to let his surrogates speak evil of opponents. Glenn Beck has opened numerous rallies for Cruz with lengthy speeches to warm up the crowd and spoken on behalf of Beck on news programs. Cruz has had much good to say about his front man Beck.
Today on his talk show, Beck said that John Kasich was delusional for thinking he could surge in the remaining primaries adding that Kasich was a “son of a bitch” because “the republic is at stake.” Watch (from Right Wing Watch):
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZb-C39U0BE[/youtube]
Cruz has never apologized to his Iowa, South Carolina and Nevada audiences for the deceptive talks delivered by Glenn Beck on the subject of George Washington. Beck misled thousands with his copy of Don Quixote by telling them that the book was the same copy George Washington purchased on the day Washington signed the Constitution. He also misrepresented George Washington’s diary entry for September 17, 1787, the day he signed the Constitution. I can only assume Cruz doesn’t care what Beck says.
More Truth Stretching: Ted Cruz's GOP Debate Claim About Obama's Oval Office Churchill Statue
Despite numerous factual accounts of what happened to the two White House statues of Winston Churchill, Ted Cruz repeated a debunked story during Thursday’s GOP presidential debate which has been around since the early days of Obama’s first term. Here is what Cruz said last night:
CRUZ: Of course it does. And we’ve seen for seven years a president that has made the presidency and has made, sadly, his administration a laughing stock in the world. This administration started with President Obama sending back the bust of Winston Churchill to the United Kingdom within the opening weeks.
Cruz has said that before during the campaign. The claim rated two pinocchios from Washington Post fact checkers.
Obama did send a bust of Churchill back to England. That bust was loaned to George Bush and when he left office the statue had to go back. However, there is another statue which has a permanent place in the White House furnishings. That statue stayed at the White House and in the photo above is being viewed by U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron along with Barack Obama in 2010.
It is a pretty silly controversy, so am I writing about it?
Given Cruz’s close ties to David Barton and Glenn Beck, the fact that Cruz repeats what is to him a useful story despite it being so misleading as to be untrue is relevant to his candidacy. Just yesterday, I posted a clip of David Barton claiming that he was on the FBI’s hate group list. He encouraged his listeners to go look up his name on the FBI website. However, I learned from the FBI that the agency has no formal list of hate groups and so David Barton can’t be on it. Barton has made numerous false claims about historical and current events.
While opening for Cruz’s campaign speeches in Iowa, South Carolina and Nevada, Glenn Beck deceived Cruz audiences about his copy of Don Quixote and George Washington’s diary entry on the day Washington signed the Constitution.
These are needless distortions and falsehoods by two of Cruz’s closest endorsers. Cruz’s distortion of the facts was needless as well. However, it seems that Cruz and company have such a pattern of this that all factual claims need to be checked (see also this example from a Cruz legal brief). Those who have followed Barton and Beck know that truth stretching is part of the operating procedure. Either this has rubbed off on Cruz or birds of a feather have flocked together.
So many red flags go up. Cruz’s slogan is TrusTed. My response is: Why should I?
Glenn Beck at Ted Cruz Rallies: George Washington's Don Quixote Out, Willy Wonka's Golden Ticket In
Last week Michael Calderone pointed out that Glenn Beck was not truthful when he told Ted Cruz rally audiences in Iowa, South Carolina and Nevada that the copy of Don Quixote Beck displayed was the copy George Washington purchased on the day the Constitution was signed. In fact, that copy of Don Quixote, along with a Spanish edition, is owned by Mount Vernon’s library. Beck’s book was given by George Washington as a gift to friend Tobias Lear.
Furthermore, I discovered that Beck’s depiction of George Washington’s diary entry on the day he signed the Constitution was blatantly false. Since then, I have found nine different recorded events where Beck told the entire false narrative involving the book and the diary entry.
As Breitbart News pointed out, Beck admitted to Huffington Post that he misled Cruz’s audiences about the book (but not the diary entry), but he did not admit it to his own readers. Instead, Beck took a defensive stance on his own website and accused HuffPo of sloppy journalism and lack of research.
Without comment or apology to the many people he misled on the campaign trail, Beck has switched gears and speeches. Now instead of displaying his copy of George Washington’s Don Quixote, he brought out the “Golden Ticket” from the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Watch:
[youtube]https://youtu.be/Y0qdmR14MYo[/youtube]
In other speeches over the weekend, he brought out a personal letter from President Reagan to his daughter Patti. Reagan hoped to talk his daughter into improving their relationship. Beck says Patti Davis sold the letter for drug money. He apparently picked it up at auction. At least that is his current story.
It is beyond me how Beck can claim to love truth while offering up such a hoax and how Ted Cruz can look the other way.
Glenn Beck on Why Ted Cruz Will Win: We Have Almighty God on Our Side
Glenn Beck earlier today in Tulsa.
So if Cruz loses the nomination, will God be a loser too?
Cruz has made it much farther than Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry, the two candidates in 2012 who claimed God’s calling. If Cruz makes it, it will indeed be a miracle.