Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, in full desperation, has apparently decided that the only way to catch Donald Trump in the Republican presidential primary race is to out-Trump Trump or to at least match him blow by extremist blow.
Early this morning, terrorists struck a train station and an airport terminal in Brussels, Belgium, killing dozens and injuring many others. Before long, the opportunistic Cruz had popped open a fresh pack of dog whistles and was marching in front of reporters with his own Trump-like plan on how to prevent terrorism here at home:
“We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized.”
In other words, Cruz essentially wants to wall-off entire neighborhoods and tell law enforcement that anyone who is Muslim — or who is perceived as being Muslim — should be considered a suspect. Doing anything less, Cruz said, would be caving to “political correctness.”
Cruz has now become the other candidate not named Trump who will do or say anything (last Friday he called undocumented immigrants “hardened, vicious, violent criminals.”) to get elected, and he doesn’t mind attacking an entire faith to do it.
Last week, Cruz appointed anti-Muslim extremist Frank Gaffney as his foreign policy advisor. Watch Cruz, just last night, struggle to defend the Gaffney, picking and dodging questions about Gaffney’s many fringe conspiracy theories:
Cruz and his religious-right friends have spent years and made careers out of claiming that their religious freedom comes under attack when a same-sex couple down the street gets married, or when a health insurance plan covers birth control for someone else. But all that isn’t an attack on religious freedom. What Cruz suggested today, the singling out of people simply because of their faith, is the epitome of religious persecution and an attack on religious freedom.
The irony of it all probably escapes Cruz. Or he just doesn’t care.
