Thursday, July 21, 2016

Ted Cruz: Now This Is a Man

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I don't have a TV because I think TV sucks the soul out of the body. Google it. I'm confident that there is a peer-reviewed study out there proving just that.

But there are things I wish I could watch: the Academy Awards, The Tonys, and political conventions.

Last night my internet connection stayed on long enough that I could watch the entire Ted Cruz Republican National Convention speech live.

Oooo baby. Every now and then you get a sense that you are watching history. The screen practically burst into flames. Heidi Cruz actually had to be escorted out of the convention center by security.

Trump supporters are spinning more desperately than Melania on an exercise bike after Donald tells her she's putting on weight.

Trump supporters are braying as obstreperously as they can:

TED CRUZ IS A TRAITOR

TED CRUZ IS DEAD

I REGRET EVER VOTING FOR TED CRUZ.

I'm using all caps because that is how Trump supporters communicate. I really should throw in a few misspellings and malapropisms and racist epithets.

Don't fall for Team Trump's spin.

Ted Cruz is not a traitor, he is not dead, and I wish I could have voted for him.

I'll tell you what Ted Cruz is. Ted Cruz is a man.

Donald Trump is dumpster trash. His supporters are dumpster divers who have swallowed trash.

Ted Cruz stood up there and was the lone voice who pointed out that the emperor is naked.

Cruz didn't do it when it was getting to be safe or easy to do it. He didn't wait for the right moment to ask, "Have you no decency sir?"

Cruz exposed Trump and his supporters at the crest of Trump's power and popularity, at the ground zero of their fantasies.

I'll tell you what else Ted Cruz is. He is smart and he is complex. His speech hushed the crowd and drew tears. He wove the current events of the day – cop killings and black-white tensions – into the fabric of how Donald Trump bullied Ted Cruz, his wife Heidi Cruz, and his father, Rafael Cruz. Cruz spoke of transcendent love and forgiveness.

No, he didn't say "Vote Trump," but anyone with a three-digit IQ could hear that theme in the speech, the theme of "If you think it's good for America to forgive Trump for being a hate-mongering liar, then, yeah, vote for him. I won't hold it against you."

I heard that. What the crowd heard was "Vote your conscience," and at *that* the Trump supporters booed. They are nothing more or less than the types who would give the thumbs down the gladiators, eager to see blood spurt from human flesh.

Trump supporters, America is at the crossroads: immigration, terrorism, decay of the values America is found on. At this crossroads, you, Trump supporters, you foisted on us the single worst presidential candidate in American history. You have hurt your country and that hurt is not going away in a long time.


As I sat there, electrified, listening to Cruz's manfully courageous and astoundingly tender speech, a speech shot through with Christian values, an articulate speech, not the verbal diarrhea that dribbles forth from Trump, I thought, "This could have been our presidential candidate. And he is not. Because the voters chose a flaccid bag of lies of and hate, a clown who dog whistles neo-Nazis. America, you have the candidate you deserve." 

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for this. It's so hard to see people falling for the spin Trump is putting on out. Knowing days in advance what Cruz would say he chose to orchestrate boos and hatred. Even the day after his coronation when he should have been attacking Hillary or at least acting presidential he sounded like a demented Vegas lounge act going through all the lies he has put forth about Cruz and his family, doubling down on them. He even said the National Enquirer is a reputable publication and should have gotten a Pulitzer. This is what we have to vote for to keep an outright criminal out of the White House.

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