Ted Cruz says Liz Cheney has been 'broken' by Donald Trump
Liz Cheney wasted no time firing back: "Trump broke Ted Cruz. A real man would be defending his wife, and his father, and the Constitution."
Last night on Fox News, Ted Cruz said something that is either a breath-taking piece of self-blindness or an exercise in cynical hypocrisy so profound as to demand the response, “he said what?” Specifically, last night, in an interview with Sean Hannity, Cruz offered this opinion,
“I look at the situation of Liz Cheney and I just think it’s sad. I’ve always liked her, I haven’t agreed with her on everything, I think she’s a bit too eager to send in the Marines and to invade countries all over the planet, but I’ve always liked her and I think she falls into the category of people who Donald Trump just broke, just shattered.”
He refers to Cheney’s grievous mortal sin - the fatal error for which there is no forgiveness - putting country before party. Cheney had decided that finding out the truth about 1/6 was more important than hiding the Republican’s fascist soul. And as in every cult, the most egregious sin in the GOP is apostasy.
That Cruz, or any other anti-democracy warriors, should cast brickbats at Cheney is as unremarkable as the school bully taunting the chess champion. But what Ted did — to stay in good with the party’s jealous godhead — is lump Liz in with the others who “Donald Trump just broke”. Which immediately raises the question of who else is in that category? And number one on that dismal list is America’s most reviled Senator, Cruz himself.
Cruz’s arc from political opponent to expedient boot-licker is well-known. On the campaign trail, he called Trump “a pathological liar”, a “serial philanderer”, and “utterly amoral” And said he was a man who “doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies. He lies with practically every word that comes out of his mouth, and in a pattern that I think is straight out of a psychology textbook, his response is to accuse everybody else of lying.”
At that point, it was the usual political acid. But when Trump insulted Ted’s wife and accused his father of assassinating JFK, it should have led to an irreparable rift. It did not. Ted went from refusing to endorse Trump at the National Convention. To embracing him. To making campaign calls on his behalf.
(Aside: Hannity had concluded the Cruz interview by slamming Cheney for partnering “with people who have accused her father of being a murderer.” You cannot make this stuff up.)
Cruz is hardly the only former Trump rival who sank to his knees and pleaded to kiss the ring. Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio were soon sheep in the same fold. But Cruz took it one step further. He made campaign calls on his abuser’s behalf. He had said, after finally endorsing Trump as the Party’s candidate, that it “was not a blanket commitment that if you slander and attack Heidi I'm going to nonetheless go like a servile puppy dog." But then he did. And he gave his full permission and complete endorsement for the broadcast of his obeisance.
There is, among conservatives, nostalgia for an imaginary Edenic past. And part of their historical fantasy is a time when ‘men were men' with masculine values outlined by Josh ‘make me a sandwich' Hawley. Some say these values are those of a wife beater. Others call it "toxic masculinity." But let us agree that whether you believe masculine values should reflect aggressive paternalism or tend more to nurturing supporter, Ted Cruz does not have them.