Once again, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is serving up a heaping helping of divisive rhetoric — and a generous side of absurdity.
During a Saturday interview with Fox News, the Texas Republican blamed his own party’s potential midterm losses not on voter anger over the White House’s failed policies but a broad caricature of Democratic voters, whom he suggests are out to destroy our very way of life.
“This happens a lot in the midterms, where the party out of power, they’re usually ticked off,” Cruz said. “And right now, if you’re a left-wing transgender witch, you hate Donald Trump, and you’re going to show up. You’re energized.”
Cruz went on to claim that things would be just fine for Republican candidates such as U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, the Alaska Republican for whom he was campaigning, if “regular, ordinary Americans” show up to vote.
Never mind, of course, that a new Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll, released Sunday, shows plenty of Americans — ordinary in his eyes or not — fed up with the party in power.
Trump’s approval rating hit a record low of 33%, according to the survey numbers. Beyond that, 48% of voters said they’re financially worse off than when Trump returned for a second term — the highest rate the Washington Post, ABC and Ipsos have recorded since 1986.
But, according to Cruz, Democrats’ willingness to talk about affordability and Main Street economic pain is all a ruse.
As Fox aired footage of fires burning in Paris after massive protests there, Cruz accused candidates such as James Talarico, the U.S. Senate candidate from Texas, and Mary Peltola, who’s challenging Alaska’s Sullivan, of wanting to see riots in the streets in the U.S. as well.
“We have seen the Democrat party in the United States facing a hostile takeover from Islamists and communists,” Cruz said. “This burning on the streets, this rioting, this violence, this is where it goes if the Comrade Mamdanis and the Abdul El-Sayeds and the James Talaricos and the Mary Peltolas get what they want, and we’re literally fighting to save our nation.”
As cartoonish as Cruz’s hyperbole sounds, it does real damage in a political climate that’s already divided, distrustful and destabilized. Sadly, we can only expect him to turn up the volume as he ramps up his expected run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2028.
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