To hear the right-wing blindly-faithful speak, Ted Cruz is a pretty smart guy. Cruz is a U.S. Senator who graduated with honors from Harvard Law School. But does something like that really make him smart? Nathan Robinson doesn’t think so, and does a pretty good job of punching holes in the idea that Ted Cruz is sharp as a tack.
Robinson points out the fact that supporters, and even some opposers, of Cruz will tell you that the man has a brilliant mind; it’s just that 21-hour faux-filibusters and constant incorrectness about national issues muddles all that truth.
Cruz is nothing more than a circus act, a hotheaded spectacle that encourages the extreme right, and does it to suck up airtime and attention.
Contrary to the argument that Cruz possesses a keen intelligence, Robinson notes that “Cruz has become notorious for using distortive, misleading rhetoric that no sober-minded individual could apply.”
He’s referring to Cruz’s 21-hour long yammer-fest. During that monotonous diatribe, he charged that campaign finance reform impedes, or rather, “repeals” the First Amendment, and fictitious claims about the Affordable Care Act and gun control laws (Cruz said the ACA increases premiums and gun control laws increase gun murders).
Cruz’s backward politics and viewpoints haven’t changed since college. Robinson noted that Cruz’s law school roommate and debating partner, David Panton, said that Cruz hasn’t changed much since the good ol’ college days.
“Ted’s views today are almost identical to when I met him,” said Panton. “There’s nothing he says today that I didn’t hear in college.”
It’s hard to decide what would be worse, actually being Ted Cruz’s college roommate, or that Cruz still possesses the same beliefs he held as a grossly misinformed, overly passionate, can’t-wait-to-use-the-stuff-I-learned-in-class-on-someone college student.
Robinson wraps up by discussing how people think Cruz’s mindless rants are actually the cloak-and-dagger attempts of an intellectual assassin designed to throw off his opponents. Astutely, Robinson questions where the alleged tactic has worked.
He couldn’t find any instances, because they don’t exist.
Check out Nathan Robinson’s article here.
Josh is a writer and researcher with Ring of Fire. Follow him on Twitter @dnJdeli.