Patterico's Pontifications


Ted Cruz: Obama Has Been Divisive on Race

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 8:00 am

It’s about time someone said it:

Cruz accuses Obama of inflaming racial tensions

Sen. Ted Cruz on Wednesday accused President Barack Obama and his administration of inflaming racial tensions and pitting Americans against each other on major societal issues.
“President Obama, when he was elected, he could have been a unifying figure,” the Republican presidential contender said during an appearance hosted by the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

“He could have chosen to be a leader on race relations and bring us together. And he hasn’t done that, he’s made decisions that I think have inflamed racial tensions that have divided us rather than bringing us together.”

. . . .

He pointed to a moment during the 2012 presidential election when Vice President Joe Biden warned, to an audience that included African Americans, that Republicans “want to put y’all back in chains.” That “kind of incendiary and hateful rhetoric,” Cruz said, was an example of the administration “deliberately dividing and inflaming tensions.”

What Cruz should note as well, because it’s important, is that this attitude is not just rhetorical — the racial tensions are inherent in progressivism, because progressivism is at the root of the divisions in the country. Obama’s comments on the recent riots gave the mandatory lip service to the lack of fathers in the communities that are ripping themselves apart, talking about


But Obama failed (as he must, being a progressive) to note government’s role in creating this situation. Why are there no fathers? Because the state has made it possible for women to marry the government instead of the father of their children. Out of wedlock births soared beginning in 1970 after the implementation of the Great Society, breaking up family units across the nation. Minimum wage laws serve to disemploy the less educated and skilled from earning a living, even as welfare and the welfare rights movement normalized being on the dole.

The solution is not more big government. Obama talks about “job training.” Job training programs have a horrible track record of success, largely because the basic skills necessary for maintaining a low-level job, like punctuality and reliability, are not attributes taught in the culture that Big Government has wrought. So: you know the people who don’t show up for jobs on time, or come to work every day? Those same people also don’t show up for their job training on time, or even come to the training every day. Most people in LBJ’s “Job Corps” didn’t even bother to finish the training.

Obama’s other preferred solutions, like more funding for early education, have a similarly bleak track record. Head Start has been repeatedly shown to be a failure. In California, we spend absurd amounts of money on education to no avail. Kids have iPads but no basic life skills, because their culture has not taught them responsibility.

I honestly think people like Obama believe they are helping the poor and minorities. But in truth, the free market would help these people, while progressivism just keeps hurting them.

Progressivism is destroying America. Ted Cruz is one of the few people who will stand up to progressivism.

66 Responses to “Ted Cruz: Obama Has Been Divisive on Race”

  1. how can you flood the job market with tens of millions of illegals and think you are helping the poor and minorities?

    nonono Obama is not a well-meaning person

    happyfeet (831175)

  2. Of course Obama has inflamed racial tensions. For one thing, inflaming racial tensions is a core strategy of the Progressive Left. If they don’t inflame racial tensions, the various minorities they batten on might realize how badly they are being used by a bunch of ofay intellectual twits. But more than that, he has no other qualifications. He’s a poverty and race pimp. That’s what a “Community Organizer” IS. Tom Wolfe outlined it in his seminal essay “Mau Mauing the Flak Catchers” (published in the book RADICAL CHIC AND MAU MAUING THE FLAK CATCHERS). By all the evidence we have Obama is dumb as a post. He’s an economic and scientific illiterate. His foreign policy instincts would disgrace a turnip. Inflaming racial and class tensions is all he’s GOT.

    C. S. P. Schofield (a196fd)

  3. Progressivism is destroying America.

    “Progressive” sounds so tame and innocuous, so euphemistic. It therefore merely reinforces the innate biases shared by far too much of the public that if the intentions of a person are beautiful and touchy feely, he or she deserves greater latitude and an endless series of benefit of the doubt. “Liberalism” or “leftism” (or “liberal” or “leftist”) is more to the point.

    As for a liberal like Obama to have to point out the negative effect of a lack of fathers in cities like Baltimore illustrates just how bad things have become, since the left often cringes when socio-cultural dysfunction needs to be cited instead of the boogeyman of heartless cops, heartless storekeepers, heartless corporations, heartless Republicans/Tea Partiers (black or white, etc), heartless capitalism, heartless history, heartless schools, etc.

    Mark (607f93)

  4. I honestly think people like Obama believe they are helping the poor and minorities.

    I haven’t been able to convince myself of this for a long, long time. Reducing people to poverty and keeping them there is job security.

    How are Obama’s crocodile tears about the lack of fathers consistent with this?

    There’s a link to the infographic but the page at no longer exists. I guess it was too embarrassing.

    But did anyone see a father anywhere in there? There was a child in one of the slides, but then the kid disappeared from Julia’s life. I guess the kids are raised by the state in Obama’s vision of our future.

    Point being the progressive left is no more sincere about helping the poor than when they’re telling you if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.

    Steve57 (818fa4)

  5. and Ted Cruz is going to be branded by all the MSM as racist and bigoted in 3,2,1 …

    seeRpea (81fcfe)

  6. wow, no hits yet for past 24 hours

    seeRpea (81fcfe)

  7. Here’s a parody version. The graphics are the same, only the text mocks the original.

    Steve57 (818fa4)

  8. I honestly think people like Obama believe they are helping the poor and minorities.

    While I can believe that of some people, particularly those who use their places of worship or tightly affiliated to religion agencies, i in no way believe people like and in the ilk of the present PotUS, H.C, late Ted Kennedy, Al Sharpton, Rachel Maddow are in any way believing they are helping for the betterment of the peons. To increase power, yeah , i can see that. But power does not equate to bettering lives.

    seeRpea (81fcfe)


    I’m sorry Patterico, but I’m with those above. There is no way after all this time, all their failures, all the pain, all the poverty leftists have created, all the dysfunctional children and broken families they’ve created that any leftist can still believe what they are doing is helping the poor or minorities.

    Leftists hate Constitutional capitalism, period. And if they need to destroy everyone to destroy THAT, to them it’s worth it. Leftists hate Christians because Christians put God ahead of State. Leftists hate white people who aren’t fellow elite leftists because white people represent those who do NOT need government to know when to take a pee. Leftists hate straight people because they breed families and families provide for their own and don’t need leftists largess. Finally, leftists hate Republicans (just ask that vile Perry) because Republicans believe in “The Republic” and that means less centralized power for leftists.

    So no, Patterico. They all know perfectly well they are destroying the people in order to destroy the system. They are all liars, especially the ones who are out to help “the poor”, “minorities” or “the children”.

    Hoagie (58a3ec)

  10. I honestly think people like Obama believe they are helping the poor and minorities.

    You must be joking, you really must be joking.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  11. What they are doing… what is important to them is keeping the poor/minorities “on the plantation”… keep them down and feeling like victims… dependent… malleable… easy to exploit… etc.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  12. I agree about the racial politics of the left. They have a coalition of the aggrieved. Public employees, blacks, Hispanics and gays are the base. I don’t think anything can be done about this until the collapse comes. I don’t advocate trying to bring it about sooner and Republicans can work around the edges to keep the county going, like Reagan did and the GOP Congress did with Clinton, but the Democrats are getting further to the crazy left.

    Eventually, this is going to collapse. Interest rates are at a point that we will have another 1929 if anyone tries to raise them. The stock market is a huge bubble and that is also like 1929. What to do ?

    Save money, stay out of debt and stay safe. That’s all I can say. Houses are no longer the hedge they were before 2008. They are staying stable in southern California but I wonder how much longer that can last. Safe communities are getting expensive, Orange County housing prices are high but I think that is a safety premium. When my daughter moved to LA County a few years ago, her car insurance rates doubled.

    Foreign policy is an unknown. All I can say is “Drill, Baby, Drill !”

    Mike K (d85405)

  13. Didn’t take much time for new candidate Bernie Sanders to start ranting about the Koch Brothers buying elections, etc… maroon.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  14. Beggars can’t be choosers, Coronello.

    And the Democrats revel in that fact.

    Steve57 (818fa4)

  15. Agreed, Steve.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  16. its not his fault-its his grandmother-she was a typical white person…

    sound awake (beb21b)

  17. ranting about the Koch Brothers

    While conveniently sidestepping the nature of “champagne socialists” like the following:

    George Soros likes to say the rich should pay more taxes. A substantial part of his wealth, though, comes from delaying them. While building a record as one of the world’s greatest investors, the 84-year-old billionaire used a loophole that allowed him to defer taxes on fees paid by clients and reinvest them in his fund, where they continued to grow tax-free. At the end of 2013, Soros — through Soros Fund Management — had amassed $13.3 billion through the use of deferrals, according to Irish regulatory filings by Soros.

    Just before Congress closed the loophole, Soros transferred assets to Ireland—a country seen by some at the time as a possible refuge from the law. The filings show for the first time the extent to which Soros’s almost $30 billion fortune—he ranks 23rd on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index—came from finding ways to delay taxes and reinvesting the money in his fund.

    Soros has long called for a fairer distribution of income, once joining fellow billionaire Warren Buffett in urging Congress to raise estate taxes. In a 2011 essay, he wrote that he’d donated more than $8 billion to his foundations., September 2011: Billionaire investor Warren Buffett triggered a major debate over taxes recently when he wrote in The New York Times that he should be paying more to the federal government. He called on Washington lawmakers to up tax rates on the rich.



    Mark (607f93)

  18. On some level I do think “they” (at least many of them) think they really are doing good for “humanity”, it is just taking more time and a few more eggs than planned along the way to the “utopia”.

    But thinking something does not make it true.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  19. I don’t think that lefties really give a squat about the poor. And I don’t think it has to do with self image – these folks swim in their own self importance. I think it’s mostly about hating the right – protecting the poor from the evil Republicans that will………..ask them to take a job or not allow them to use EBT cards for salty snacks? Who knows? But that’s the only thing that defines the left these days – hatred of the right. Their dreams have been dashed so thoroughly by the womanizing Clinton and the Chauncey Gardner like Obama that they have turned themselves into worn out, tiresome reactionaries.

    East Bay Jay (a5dac7)

  20. Patterico,

    You keep misspelling communism.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  21. We just need some more shovel ready infrastructure jobs in urban areas to…..

    Wait, never mind…Obama admitted they don’t exist and Porkulus failed its stated objectives.

    We just need to reform education so that children in failing urban schools……

    Wait, never mind….Democrats are against charter schools, vouchers, etc. because they have been bought by the unions.


    daleyrocks (bf33e9)


    daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/30/2015 @ 10:45 am

    Oh, but it is. Obama has already blamed this on Republicans because they didn’t pass his wasteful spending social program “investment” agenda.

    Just like he blamed them for not passing his wasteful spending Global Warming initiatives.

    Wasteful spending. Is there anything it can’t fix?

    Steve57 (818fa4)

  23. O/T:

    Britain Tells UN: Iran Is Still Procuring Nuclear Material (Obama Silent)

    Just another reason to conclude Obama isn’t honest about anything.

    Steve57 (818fa4)

  24. “I honestly think people like Obama believe they are helping the poor and minorities.”

    I stopped believing that a long time ago. The evidence that they know the results of their actions is overwhelming!

    Mike (7c4039)

  25. What do progressives want? They want more. One hundred years and they still want more. It’s all about more.

    ThOR (a52560)

  26. There is always an unmet need. Even if it’s “crack addicts don’t have yachts”, a progressive will have a program to fix it.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  27. Typical white people.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  28. I think progressives believe intentions matter more than results, so I honestly think that people like Obama believe that intending to help the poor and minorities is enough.

    DRJ (e80d46)

  29. Wasteful spending” doesn’t really capture the devastation that progressive programs cause. If something is wasteful, you might imagine that the underlying purpose was achieved, but at an excessive cost. This is the sort of vibe I get when I listen to Stephen Moore criticize something. It’s sort like bragging that you just bought your car at thousands of dollars less than someone else. There’s an almost explicit presumption that the goal was achieved. You got the car didn’t you, so who’s he to brag about saving a few bucks?

    The problem isn’t that we pay too much for what we get. Progressive programs are guaranteed to have unintended consequences that actually hinder the stated objective. We need a more colorful and accurate phrase, something that will demonstrate that we aren’t worried about this like your accountant might when reviewing the deductions on your tax return. Something along the lines of ‘Let’s stop screwing our children!” But there must be something more on point.

    bobathome (ef0d3a)


    DRJ (e80d46) — 4/30/2015 @ 1:11 pm

    Maybe the rank-and-file believe that. But the Alinskyites at the top believe in getting the right results for false or even the wrong reasons. And make no mistake, Obama is getting the right results both domestically and internationally.

    A basic tenet Saul Alinsky taught community organizers (gee, who might one of those be) is that “All change involves disorganization of the old and then organization of the new.”

    This explains everything he’s doing doing internationally. From returning the bust of Churchill to Britain (no longer Great) to turning our backs on our NATO allies (He sold out Poland to Russians on missile defense on the seventieth anniversary of the Russian invasion) to threatening to sell out Israel by withdrawing support in the UN (a threat I believe he’ll make good on) to selling the US out on this intentionally humiliating Iran nuclear deal.

    Domestically it explains everything from the economically ruinous Obamacare to the border chaos to Baltimore. And Baltimore illustrates another central tenet of community organizing; stir up anger and discontent, then channel the rage.

    None of this is accidental. But if Alinskyites told people what they were up to, they’d never achieve anything. Hence social programs are intended to help the poor. That’s the sales pitch. And it makes their deluded followers feel good about themselves. Perhaps some of them imagine these programs even could help the poor. Really, they’re intended to reduce people to beggary and keep them there. Then they can lie to the impoverished and tell them it was capitalism that let them down. They’re really intended to disorganize society.

    He had to tell people he was a racial healer as a candidate in order to get into office so he could be the most racially divisive President ever.

    Steve57 (818fa4)

  31. oh my goodness

    we shoulda had him chipped

    happyfeet (831175)

  32. I think progressives believe they are doing the right thing for humanity, and if everyone would just do as they said, things would be fine,
    so the short term bad results don’t mean much,
    because they are too busy loving humanity to love their neighbor,
    which is where on sees results.

    And that is an old concept, ya’ll know it’s nothing original with me,
    “I love humanity, it’s people I can’t stand”.

    But it does fit with the arrogance to think that one has the answers if just everyone else would listen and do what I told them.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  33. OT- I just had to get a non-family “medical person”(could have been a social worker, the form says)to sign a form for my daughter stating that the experiment that she was doing for her science fair project would not be dangerous.

    Really, an IRB for 8th graders having students do math problems listening to music?

    BTW, speaking of daughters, has anyone heard from nk??? feets or any other Chicago land folk know where he lives?

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  34. i will investigate this weekend best i can

    happyfeet (831175)

  35. thanks, happyfeet

    mg (31009b)

  36. Yes, thanks

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  37. Doc @33, most Muslims believe Islam really is a religion of peace. But like the Alinskyite high priests and priestesses, their scholars and clerics know better.

    Steve57 (818fa4)

  38. do they ignore the first quarter of the Koran,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  39. In all seriousness narciso most Muslims don’t read any of the Quran.

    And they’re usually discouraged to. In this sense, the dhimmis weren’t being treated any differently than Muslims under the Pact of Umar when one of the stipulations was that they were required not to teach/read the Quran.

    Steve57 (818fa4)

  40. granted that, but if they go to mosque, they would get a certain flavor of it, no,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  41. as opposed to corker, who’s busy counting spoons or something:

    narciso (ee1f88)

  42. 42. granted that, but if they go to mosque, they would get a certain flavor of it, no,
    narciso (ee1f88) — 4/30/2015 @ 4:15 pm

    They get only what their prayer leader or cleric wants them to know. For instance most Muslims believe Muhammad died peacefully in his bed because of natural causes.

    They don’t know that a Jewish woman killed him by poisoning him after he and his followers killed her family at the battle of Khaybar. They don’t know she meant it as a test to see if he really was a prophet of God, as the old Testament prophets such as Elijah couldn’t be killed by poison. They don’t know he died exactly as Allah said he would kill Muhammad if he was a false prophet.

    So, no they don’t really get a taste of it.

    Steve57 (818fa4)

  43. somewhat like Fanya Kaplan, of the Social Revolutionaries tried to do to Lenin,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  44. “Khaybar Khaybar, ya yahud, Jaish Muhammad, sa yahud,”

    Muslims wouldn’t chant that, thinking they were taunting Jews, if they knew the truth.

    Remember Khaybar

    Steve57 (818fa4)

  45. narciso @43, I’m not familiar with that.

    Steve57 (818fa4)

  46. I remember her from the series Reilly Ace of Spies, she shot Lenin in 1918, but only gravely wounded him, her attempt unfortunately, helped get the Cheka into high gear,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  47. Vollman’s Europa Central has a more comprehensive profile,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  48. The advice of Stalin, who had used these tactics successfully in Tsaritsyn, was accepted and in September, 1918, Felix Dzerzhinsky, head of the Cheka, instigated the Red Terror.

    Yes, the Red Terror. This is similar to what ISIS is doing. There’s a reason why ISIS is killing those Obama calls Muslims. Abu Bakr al Baghdadi has a PhD in Islamic theology, while our Columbia Poli Sci major and Harvard Law Preezy goes on about how these terrorists aren’t experts in Islam. As if he is.

    Al Baghdadi chose his nom de guerre because Abu Bakr was the first rightly guided caliph after Muhammad died. A lot of Muslims, most Muslims, only became Muslim because otherwise Muhammad would kill them. They attempted to leave Islam. Abu Bakr started his reign by fighting the Wars of Apostasy. He declared if anyone paid Muhammad so much as a piece of rope they were going to pay it to him or die.

    Abu Bakr al Baghdadi knows his history, even if Obama doesn’t. That’s why he’s killing those he doesn’t consider Muslims. Pour Encourager Les Autres. To enforce orthodoxy with an iron fist. Just like the Red Terror.

    Helps explain why leftists love the Islamists so much.

    Steve57 (818fa4)

  49. actually ISIS has a more familiar local pedigree:

    and this goes back to the Golden Square, which was Adolf and Benito’s vichy proxy

    narciso (ee1f88)

  50. It doesn’t change the significance of al Baghdadi’s choice of name, narciso.

    When Obama says there is nothing Islamic about ISIS because, hey look, they’re killing Muslims I laugh. Either he’s an ignoramus or he’s practicing taqqiyah.

    Steve57 (818fa4)

  51. True, the link also dispenses the notion that the Baathist were the secular defenders, I did’t know that detail about Al Harith, but one notes most of the front line fighters have very
    evocative kunyas, like (Abu Sufyan) Bin Qumu, the planner behind Benghazi,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  52. They are Salafis, narciso.

    Steve57 (818fa4)

  53. …the notion that the Baathist were the secular defenders…

    This was an easily refuted lie when the left first came up with it to oppose the Iraq war 13 years ago.

    Steve57 (818fa4)

  54. I’m just going to say this for discussion. I honestly think people don’t like Ted Cruz because of the way he looks. He is extremely intelligent. From my point of view he says the right things. He pisses off the left and the right. His words, though, ring true.

    Regardless, he is vilified from the left and right. Yet, he doesn’t have Perry’s square jaw or Biden’s just folk look. He is Cuban, but he doesn’t look like Ricky Ricardo. He doesn’t fit the look of a minority President as Obama.

    I’m sorry, but he is not popular simply because he doesn’t look popular. You can hate me or insult me for the opinion. Actually, I think Hillary has the same problem. She simply doesn’t look like the first woman President.

    I know this sounds superficial. Regardless, I think this is true.

    Please take into account that I think Cruz would be a very good President.

    Ag80 (eb6ffa)

  55. I know this sounds superficial. Regardless, I think this is true.

    Ag80, I expressed similar thoughts awhile back, noting that Cruz has a rather non-photogenic aquiline nose. It’s exasperating to have to take such things into consideration or even seriously, but the idiotic left-leaning tilt of too much of the electorate, or the benefit of the doubt that too many people (of all stripes) give to supposed big-hearted do-gooders (real or imagined), while doing just the opposite to perceived no-nonsense straight shooters means everything needs to (or should) be nitpicked over and rated accordingly.

    Mark (607f93)

  56. Cruz is well qualified – to be Solicitor General. Then maybe the DC Appeals Court and a fast track to the Supreme Court. That would fit his impressive resume well.

    But there is nothing to indicate he could either win the Presidency or do the job effectively if he did. His whole and entire experience is in law and none in management.

    Additionally, he has won exactly one election in his career, as a Republican in Texas, which last elected a Democrat to the Senate in 1986, and last elected a Democrat NOT named “Lloyd Bentsen” to the Senate in 1966. He scares the hell out of independents.

    And he has shown the opposite of leadership in the Senate. He doesn’t even attend the weekly caucus meetings, consults no one except sometimes Lee. Cruz ran ads in 25 colleagues’ home states attacking them for not doing something he hadn’t even asked them to do (his Obamacare shutdown effort, to which he later admitted he had no follow-up plan at all). Didn’t even give them a heads-up on the ads.

    That’s not leadership. If you think it is, you are stupid.

    We have too many qualified candidates with solid records of achievements as Governors to gamble on some lone wolf rookie just because he can excite the base with red meat.

    Estragon (ada867)

  57. Everyone but Estragon is stupid.

    JD (3b5483)

  58. Lol

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  59. Whut?

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  60. The single biggest accomplishment during the Clinton administration was “ending welfare as we know it”
    Granted it was a republican idea that Clinton got credit for, but for the most part it was a huge success. Forcing people to become responsible for themselves is a win win for everyone.

    joe (debac0)

  61. leadership is defined as fully funding obamacare, endorsing a rogue atty general, this figleaf of a nuclear surrender pact with the Pasdaran, yes give me more of that,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  62. In circa 1968, liberal politicians, columnists, etc were uttering the same weasel words they use now. Funny thing, by the 1970 mid-term elections, liberal democrats were making speeches praising the misunderstood police.

    Doubt we’ll see the latter. The left believes the demographic changes makes it politically expedient to encourage riots.

    DN (78a7ed)

  63. So you still think a fight can be avoided? One in which you can avoid causing or receiving mortal injury?

    DNF (c9835a)

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