Ugh.
I don’t like talking about politics. Everything I write now will be wrong in a year. Or maybe even in a month. And I also have my own biases that I know I can’t see through. I’ve said to myself that if you have 100 friends on Facebook who talk about politics, only 1 or 2 are worth listening to and the rest are wasting electrons. The odds that I am one of those two are small that I shouldn’t be wasting time on my blog.
But I’m still going to talk about it because I have been interested in politics for over 25 years.
These are my thoughts at this exact moment.
Right now, the Republican presidential nomination is led by Donald Trump, an over-the-top reality TV star who has expressed viewpoints that many people would consider contentious. For the rest of the people who don’t, I only have to ask “What’s wrong with you?”
But as bad as Donald Trump is as a candidate, whenever I talk to my liberal friends, they express hope that maybe he’s not as bad as he pretends to be, and all his talk is just that – talk. They may be right, but my concern is that all his talk is not just talk. After all, if the Republican nominee becomes the President of the United States, his party has control of both Congress and the Senate.
But it’s not that Donald Trump is currently leading in the primary that has me concerned, it’s that Senator Ted Cruz of Texas is second. To me, Ted Cruz is the worst candidate in the race. I dislike him more than any other candidate on the Republican side. out of the four candidates left from the Republicans, Ted Cruz would be my 25th pick. I just can’t stand the guy. He’s the only guy that I would leave the country if he were elected [1].
I don’t follow politics closely enough to have an informed opinion, all I have is a not-all-that-informed opinion. And my not-all-that-informed position is that he is a hardcore ideologue.
What do I mean?
Ted Cruz is one of the hardest right-leaning candidates in the US Senate, let alone the presidential race. My impression of him is his obstructionist stance against everything President Obama has tried to pass legislatively. That’s okay, but he’s so far to the right it’s hard to take him seriously.
- For example, his stance on climate change (that it isn’t real, or isn’t caused by humans) stands in the face of 97% of scientists. In other words, his position is not on the side of science and that’s because if climate change were real, it would require massive government action. But since he’s against massive government action, he has to deny climate change as a reality so he can resolve his cognitive dissonance that there was a problem that he stood in the way of (i.e., he’s opposed to something that’s not a problem is more palatable than he opposed finding a solution to a serious problem). He has to deny climate change because he is an ideologue.
- His economic stance is also ideological. He is opposed to increasing the minimum wage because of his belief in markets. Yet many economists say that raising the minimum wage is good for the economy because it puts more money in the hands of low wage earners who immediately spend it thus increasing the velocity of money in the economy, as opposed to concentrating it in the hands of a few people who keep it parked in their bank accounts and don’t do much with it. While that’s their right to do it, politicians have to balance economic growth, ensuring everyone has a fair chance, and retaining your money. Ted Cruz will have none of this, his position is too ideological.
- He’s also against Obamacare and would repeal it. I don’t fully understand the law but what I do know is that (a) it hasn’t affected me, (b) more people have insurance now than before and that’s a good thing, (c) I’ve read a little bit about it and it’s actually cleverly designed, and (d) it’s small potatoes compared to public health care in every other developed country.
Politicians like Cruz always say that they will repeal the bill and instead pass all sorts of other solutions like allow insurance companies to sell insurance over state lines. Yet study after study shows that this does not help; in the US we will have more people without health insurance than before if Obamacare is repealed, and the people who are hit worst by this are the less well off. Yet Cruz stands behind this because he is ideologically driven.
Thus, my problem with Ted Cruz starts with his denial of reality which is driven by his ideology combined with the fact that while in the Senate he has done everything in his power to push that agenda. People who cling so tightly to ideology don’t change their mind regardless of reality. Instead, they pick and choose what they want to believe so it conforms to reality. We all do this, but Cruz is auditioning to be the President of the United States. It matters that he is an ideologue and is not persuaded by science and data.
The second thing that Cruz does that irks me even more is his polished finish and his appeal to the evangelical community. He goes into church events, thanking God for his success so far and how he is the candidate that shares the concerns of the evangelical community.
But to me, he comes off as a used-car salesman with a slick exterior hiding a sleazy beneath-the-surface interior. He convinces ordinary people that he is on their side and is fighting for them, and his cause is in agreement with divine principles. Yet the positions he advocates – denial of climate change, repealing bills designed to help poor people without health coverage, not assisting the people at the lowest rungs of society – ring hollow. That’s what you think is Christian? To me, it sounds more like the confluence between ideology and masking it with religiosity.
I try to take a neutral stance on all the other candidates. The United States system of government is good in that it separates powers and ensures that no one branch of government can become too powerful. My friends on Facebook bring up counter-examples. I just roll my eyes. So at least I can cling to the belief that this guy would not be that bad because he’d hopefully moderate his positions in the face of reality.
Yet at the same time, politics in the US has become more and more polarized, and one political party would hold all three branches of government plus have the ability to tip the balance of the Supreme Court.
And when I picture Ted Cruz winning the Republican nomination – maybe – I cringe. When I imagine him winning the Presidency – maybe – I cringe even more. And I wonder why he is the second most popular candidate on the Republican side? Is politics really that ideological? The tech geeks promised us that the Internet would allow us to become enlightened luminaries, all clinging to liberal ideals. That definitely has not happened. If anything, it’s sparked the opposite effect of people circling the wagons and retreating back to their corners.
Man, this is getting under my skin. It shouldn’t, but it is. And I know I shouldn’t be taking it so seriously.
[1] I don’t mean to say that I would actually leave the country. I think it’s now become a really funny joke that when people are worried that their opposing candidate will be elected, they are so illogically fearful of this that they say they will leave the country, but no one ever does. So I wouldn’t leave the country either, but I say this as a parody of my friends who say they will, as well as all the others who say they will also but never do.
I don’t want to take politics too seriously, but it keeps sucking me back in. I was sucked in during the 2004 campaign, too.
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