I watched this press conference live. It is almost hard to remember now how much respect I used to have for Ted Cruz. Almost all of my respect for him has evaporated over the past few months, as I have watched him lie over and over again about things I have researched thoroughly from original and/or unbiased sources and as I have seen him use any means possible to get ahead (and I’m not forgetting about his famed dirty trickster campaign manager, Jeff Roe, and the highly questionable things his campaign has done).
What I really find disturbing, though, is how subtle he is in his machinations, so that his supporters still see him as an honest and moral man. I have seen him time and again take something that has a kernel of truth and then radically twist the meaning and specifics to deliberately give false impressions. I’ve followed him closely, and in some ways his strategic, ruthless brilliance is admirable on a level.
I will still vote for him if he is the nominee for the sake of the Supreme Court and with the hope that he’ll do something about the border, but I am already at the point where I find him repulsive and can barely stand to look at him. His most devoted supporters’ intolerance of anyone who holds even slightly different opinions hardly puts him in a better light, as he seems to attract close-minded supporters who only believe what confirms their pre-existing biases. All across the Internet, but especially here, they act far too much like the (usually leftist) thought police.
I have no faith that Cruz is anything but a very ambitious hypocrite. I am not at all surprised that he would use this left-wing attack on free speech to attack the victim and use it to his political advantage. I write all this in sadness and disappointment.