Ted Cruz Tells NAACP, Martin Luther King How To Civil Rights Good

And do other stuff good too.

Last week, the NAACP issued a travel advisory for the less-than-free state of Florida, stating that Gov. Ron DeSantis's policies were an "all-out attack on Black Americans" and other minorities. Sen. Ted Cruz tweeted in response, "This is bizarre. And utterly dishonest." The noted civil rights scholar conceded that the NAACP had done "extraordinary good" during the 1950s and 1960s (when he wasn't yet alive) but "today Dr. King would be ashamed of how profoundly they've lost their way."

Martin Luther King Jr. Day was months ago, so Cruz is insulting his memory out of season — sort of like wearing a white hood after Labor Day. Historian Kevin M. Kruse, who corrects right-wing doofuses as a hobby, pointed out that in 1965, "Dr. King called for a national boycott of the state of Alabama, saying that Democratic Gov. George Wallace's policies constituted 'a reign of terror' against Black Americans."

Cruz, who obviously enjoys humiliating himself publicly, replied, "George Wallace was a Democrat — your party — and an incorrigible racist. Dr. King’s standing up to his bigotry was heroic & helped change America. Florida today, by contrast, is an oasis of freedom, which is why vast numbers of African-Americans are moving there."

The Black people who move to Florida aren't voting for DeSantis or any other Republican in "vast numbers," either. Last year, 86 percent of Black Floridians voted Charlie Crist for governor and 90 percent backed Val Demings for Senate. These numbers are probably why Florida Republicans go to such great efforts to keep Black people from voting. 

George Wallace was Donald Trump in training wheels, and Ron DeSantis is more like Wallace than he is New York Republican Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, whom Dr. King respected. 

PREVIOUSLY:

 Sorry, GOP, You’re The Party Of President Klan Robe Now, Not Lincoln 

 Ted Cruz Being Incorrect A-Hole About Civil Rights History Again 

Cruz promotes the bogus right-wing narrative that white Southern Democrats were really racist, but then Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement fixed all that with the help of noble Republicans. Apparently, Black people just got really confused and abandoned all their allies in the Republican Party. Only Clarence Thomas, Tim Scott, and Candace Owens have the special They Live glasses to see that Democrats are the true racists. 

Cruz claims that racist Democrats led the filibuster against the Civil Rights Act and that his party "proudly voted" for the legislation in larger numbers than Democrats. This is masterful trolling, considering that in Texas itself, the Democratic senator (Ralph Yarborough) voted for the Civil Rights Act, and the Republican (John Tower) opposed it. Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act and his Republican opponent Barry Goldwater opposed it. Dr. King described the 1964 Republican National Convention as "the frenzied wedding ... of the KKK with the radical Right."

“Legendary political cartoonist Bill Mauldin on the 1964 Republican National Convention, an event Martin Luther King Jr. described as "the frenzied wedding ... of the KKK with the radical right."”

— Kevin M. Kruse (@Kevin M. Kruse) 1684848811 

It didn't matter if Goldwater himself was as personally racist as Strom Thurmond. They still shared a common cause.

 From NPR:  

Goldwater said he supported the white Southern position on civil rights, which was that each and every state had a sovereign right to control its laws. The Arizona Republican argued that each American has the right to decide whom to hire, whom to do business with and whom to welcome in his or her restaurant. The senator was right at home with Southern politicians who called the Civil Rights Act an attack on "the Southern way of life."

It's especially insulting that Cruz treats political parties as fixed entities. Bob Dole complained in 2015 that Cruz "uses the word 'conservative' more than he ever uses the word 'Republican.'" Cruz usually describes himself as a "conservative" or a "constitutionalist," so it's not a stretch to imagine him as a Goldwater Boy. The Republicans who'd supported civil rights were liberals and (at best) moderates, and they were purged from the party once Ronald Reagan was elected.

The former California governor said the Voting Rights Act was "humiliating to the South" and only grudgingly extended it in 1982 after political pressure. Reagan vetoed the Civil Rights Restoration Act in 1988 and his Equal Opportunity Commission, as well as his Justice Department, prosecuted fewer civil rights cases than they had under Jimmy Carter, the former governor of Georgia.

Republicans might insist on calling themselves the "party of Lincoln," but it was the spiritual descendants of John Wilkes Booth who stormed the Capitol on January 6 and who control the party today.

[ NPR ]

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