Friday, January 15, 2016

Davod Brooks: "The Brutalism of Ted Cruz"

This story from David Brooks' New York Times column on January 12th deserves to be part of the discussion about Ted Cruz's character qualifications to be president of the United States.

"In 1997, Michael Wayne Haley was arrested after stealing a calculator from Walmart. This was a crime that merited a maximum two-year prison term. But prosecutors incorrectly applied a habitual offender law. Neither the judge nor the defense lawyer caught the error and Haley was sentenced to 16 years.

"Eventually, the mistake came to light . . . . Ted Cruz was solicitor general of Texas at the time. Instead of just letting Haley go for time served, Cruz took the case to the Supreme Court to keep Haley in prison for the full 16 years

"Some justices were skeptical. 'Is there some rule that you can’t confess error in your state?'  Justice Anthony Kennedy asked. The court system did finally let Haley out of prison, after six years. 

"The case reveals something interesting about Cruz’s character. Ted Cruz is now running strongly among evangelical voters . . . . But in his career and public presentation Cruz is a stranger to most of what would generally be considered the Christian virtues: humility, mercy, compassion and grace.   Cruz’s behavior in the Haley case . . . violates the spirit of the law, as well as fairness and mercy. . . . 

"Cruz’s speeches are marked by what you might call pagan brutalism. There is not a hint of compassion, gentleness and mercy. Instead, his speeches are marked by a long list of enemies, and vows to crush, shred, destroy, bomb them. When he is speaking in a church the contrast between the setting and the emotional tone he sets is jarring.

"Cruz lays down an atmosphere of apocalyptic fear. . . .  [and] of menace in which there is no room for compassion, for moderation, for anything but dismantling and counterattack. And that is what he offers. . . .  to destroy things: destroy the I.R.S., crush the 'jackals' of the E.P.A., end funding for Planned Parenthood, reverse Obama’s executive orders, make the desert glow in Syria, destroy the Iran nuclear accord. . . . 

"Cruz exploits and exaggerates that fear. . . .  He sows bitterness, influences his followers to lose all sense of proportion and teaches them to answer hate with hate. . . .

"Evangelicals and other conservatives have had their best influence on American politics when they have proceeded in a spirit of personalism . . . .  Ted Cruz’s brutal, fear-driven, apocalypse-based approach is the antithesis of that."

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David Brooks is a conservative, although a few years ago he announced that he was no longer identifying himself as a Republican but as an Independent.

I think we're going to see more and more speeches like Nikki Haley's and this essay from David Brooks as the establishmenat and moderate Republicans try to save their party from this politics of fear and hate.

Ralph

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