Today In The Anals Of Stupid: Sen. Ted Cruz And The Far-Right
Looks like someone really did pull one out of his ass
For a guy with a bachelor’s AND a law degree from Ivy League universities, Ted Cruz certainly can be pretty stupid. Sometimes embarrassingly so. And just when he thinks he can claim that he’s “owning the libs,” Cruz learns he’s been owned by those very same libs.
Ah, karma. Ain’t it a bitch?
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Friday boosted a viral post targeting a respected tech writer, claiming that an attributed to her was further proof that “the Left is beyond parody.” Naturally, the “article” was a complete hoax.
While he eventually—and quietly—deleted the tweet, Cruz has yet to publicly apologize for his attempt to own the libs via MAGA memes.
Earlier this week, a self-described shit-posting Twitter account fabricated a screenshot of a supposed cover story for The Atlantic written by Abby Ohlheiser, now a senior editor at MIT Technology Review.
According to the meme, Ohlheiser’s article was titled “The Evolution of White Supremacy” and centered on Muslim parents in Dearborn, Michigan becoming “the new face of the far right” because they “oppose teaching pornography to children.” (The meme is an apparent reference to Dearborn parents—many of them Muslim—currently demanding the school ban certain books from the school library, including some with LGBTQ themes.)
I know; it’s tempting when you find something, and think you have an “AHA!!” moment. But, doing even a basic bit of due diligence can seem silly when it’s right in front of you. How could it be wrong?
Except in this case, it was. It turns out that Abby Ohlheiser hasn’t written for The Atlantic since 2014. Not that this fact stopped Conservatives from deluging Ohlheiser with private messages accusing her of being a “groomer” “because ‘some maga shitposter photoshopped’ their byline on a fake article”. (Note: Ohlheiser’s pronouns are they/them.)
I know, right? Happens to me ALL the time. Well, no, thankfully, it doesn’t.
What was amazing was how Cruz and so many other Conservatives were sucked in by the fake tweet and went off half-cocked before they’d even bothered to check the tweet’s veracity.
When all was said and done, Cruz and his fellow brainiacs looked pretty silly over this Explosion of (unfortunately faux) Righteous Right-Wing Rage:
So, who’s “beyond parody” now??
Yeah, the “whole new world of stupid” wasn’t quite what the misplaced righteous outrage made it out to be. It wasn’t anything at all except a cheap cut-and-paste job done by an amateur shitposter.
It’s incredible what can happen when the mob mentality takes over, isn’t it? It can even sucker an Ivy League-trained lawyer and US Senator WHO REALLY SHOULD KNOW BETTER. Yet for some reason he lacks the brains and common sense one might expect from someone in his position.
Two days after the meme went viral, Cruz—who has seemed more focused on workshopping a right-wing media career than actually legislating—shared the image with his 5.2 million followers. In an effort to stick the landing, and without a hint of irony, he added: “The Left is beyond parody.”
The Texas senator, however, quietly took down the parody meme meant to mock the left about being “beyond parody” after users began noting that the article wasn’t real. One of those users was Ohlheiser.
And she was in no mood for niceties.
So why does Sen. Cruz keep getting himself busted in stupid situations like this? Is it stupidity? Arrogance? Laziness? Or does he think no one will find out? Does he really think himself vastly intellectual superior to the combined brainpower of the Twitterati?
I’m going to go with arrogance and laziness because shortly after being exposed, Cruz, in his typical fashion, lashed out at everyone to avoid taking personal responsibility. Yes, that’s right; one of the scions of the Party of Personal Responsibility refuses to accept that a significant f**k-up could be his fault.
[A]n indignant Cruz tweeted about his disinformational dispatch: “Didn’t know it was fake. You guys are so insane, it could easily have been real. But it wasn’t. And so I deleted the tweet as soon as I found out.” His communications adviser also took to Twitter to claim the real issue at play here was the need to censor reading material. “Your outrage is misplaced,” Guest tweeted at this reporter… “Why aren’t you concerned about the presence of sexually explicit books in public schools?”
It turns out that the junior Senator from Texas isn’t above flat-out lying if it serves his purpose.
I know; quelle surprise, non? Then again, why would you do the hard work of cleaning up your mess when you when believe you can lie and prevaricate your way out of it?
And as Washington Post reporter Aaron Blake noted on Friday morning, this is far from the first time Cruz has peddled misinformation on Twitter, only to back-pedal and take it down. The senator has similarly deleted tweets that falsely claimed the National Guard was activated to “interdict” migrants on Martha’s Vineyard; falsely claimed a graphic video showed the Taliban hanging a man from a Blackhawk helicopter after the U.S. military withdrawal; and falsely asserted that an Ottawa “Freedom Convoy” protester was “trampled.”
Of course, the tweet's veracity (or lack thereof) hardly posed a hurdle for some on the Far-Right. They didn’t necessarily NEED it to be true; all that mattered to them was that it COULD be true in some form or fashion at some point in time.
Just imagine what Conservatives would have to say if Liberals took the same approach. Their panties would be twisted so tightly in outrage their balls would go numb and turn white from lack of blood flow.
[E]ven with the knowledge that the meme was fake, some right-wing Twitter users have continued to justify sharing the hoax. “It seems this is fake and at Abby Ohlheiser’s expense. But its utter plausibility is the story,” tweeted David Innes, professor of politics at The King’s College “Liberals are DEVOTED to sexual perversion & shaping kids with it.”
Ah, don’tcha LOVE it when an academic goes whole-hog with a generalization like that? “Liberals are DEVOTED to sexual perversion & shaping kids with it.” I can’t help but wonder what on what urban myth he’s basing that sweeping overbroad generalization?
Professor Innes, if he were to do even a bare minimum of fact-checking, might learn that Liberals aren’t the ones necessarily “DEVOTED to sexual perversion & shaping kids with it.” There’s a convincing argument that pedophilia (not that either side is completely free from sin) is far more the province of Conservatives than Liberals.
After all, wasn’t it Donald Trump who half-joked about dating his daughter Ivanka? And didn’t that moment leave you feeling like you needed a shower?
I think part of the reasons Conservatives look to use sex as a weapon against Liberals is that they know their own house isn’t in order, so the sooner they can smear Liberals, the sooner they can control that narrative. They know that if the press looks too deeply, things will get ugly, so they want to deflect attention from the horror on their side of the fence to the Left side of the ideological divide.
This is a made-up controversy over a made-up article in a made-up tweet. Then some folks decided that the made-up tweet didn’t even need to be true. The fact that it could be true in some made-up world was good enough for them. And even though it was wholly and utterly false from beginning to end, it has people reacting and attempting to the record straight.
In a sense, then, the shitposter and his allies on the Far-Right can claim, “Mission Accomplished.” Those on the Left are ON THE DEFENSIVE FOR SOMETHING THAT NEVER HAPPENED. Who needs the truth when lies and propaganda can be manipulated to convince the sheeple that lies are truth and truth are lies?
Perhaps Ted Cruz isn’t as much of the problem as I’d thought. Maybe the problem is that so many of the American Sheeple are unwilling to think critically. Perhaps they’ve forgotten how…or perhaps they never learn in the first place. That 72 MILLION people voted for Donald Trump in 2020 tells me that millions are willing to forego thinking and accept being told how to vote by a charismatic madman.
Ted Cruz and other toadies on the Far-Right have their lips so firmly attached to Orange Jesus’ backside that they’d need a crowbar and a can of WD-40 to separate themselves.
And some folks will believe literally anything someone else puts out on the Internet.
WIR SIND SEHR GEFICKT.
Graduating from an Ivy is not that big of a deal. The real hurdle is getting in. Neither is an issue if you have money. So Teddy's academic "achievement" is not much of a deal.