Ted Cruz Is Accused of Antisemitism, Responds Accordingly

Subcommittee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, speaks as Federal Aviation Administration Acting Administrator Daniel Elwell, National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Robert Sumwalt, and Department of Transportation Inspector General Calvin Scovel appear before a Senate Transportation subcommittee hearing on commercial airline safety, on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, March 27, 2019, in Washington. Two recent Boeing 737 MAX crashes, in Ethiopia and Indonesia, which killed nearly 350 people, have lead to the temporary grounding of models of the aircraft and to increased scrutiny of the FAA's delegation of a number of aspects of the certification process to the aircraft manufacturers themselves. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Ted Cruz

Sen. Ted Cruz R-Texas, speaks to the media during the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, Thursday, Jan. 23, 2020, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

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I guess this is a thing now.

Ted Cruz, one of the most stalwart supporters of Israel and Jewish causes in the Senate, is now being accused of making anti-Semitic remarks. Why? Because he made an objectively true observation (with a touch of sarcasm) about Bloomberg News and Michael Bloomberg’s candidacy.

This didn’t sit well with some, including a Democratic Congressman named Andy Levin.

Except in this case, Michael Bloomberg literally owns the media in question. Heck, it’s named after him. And it’s not really debatable whether the paper has been doing his bidding. They pledged to not investigate Bloomberg, which is a really odd thing for a supposed news outlet to do, while simultaneously still reporting on his opponents. Putting out a puff piece proclaiming a guy who currently has 0 delegates as a front runner is a really, really bad look.

Cruz was making a joke that was fairly prudent in this setting.

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Oddly enough, some in conservative media also chimed in with criticisms.

https://twitter.com/SirajAHashmi/status/1230211576650780675

That’s a bad take. Again, the dynamics of Bloomberg actually owning the outlet in this case pretty much negate the idea that it’s anti-Semitic to accuse him of owning said outlet. Cruz was specifically citing a Bloomberg News article when he made the comment and it’s clear that’s what he’s talking about.

Also, bringing up Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar is really, really terrible comparison. Yes, perhaps people would care more in that case, but that’s because both of them have long histories of antisemitism.

For his part, Cruz responded accordingly.

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Look, people can have different opinions about this topic and I get the sensitization toward anti-Semitic tropes. At the same time, if every mention of a Jewish person coupled with mentions of money, media, etc. are called anti-Semitic, it waters down real antisemitism to the point where people stop paying attention. For example, Bloomberg is quite literally trying to buy an election right now. That’s not anti-Semitic to point out. It’s simply true. Likewise, pointing out that George Soros is a nefarious figure who’s bankrolled untold numbers of leftist causes is not anti-Semitic either. It’s an admission of reality.

There has to be some common sense applied in these discussions. Cruz is obviously not an anti-Semite while Rashida Tlaib obviously is. Lumping them together to draw some kind of equivocation is foolishness.

 

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