Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:43 pm
Donald Trump has questioned Ted Cruz’s citizenship, called him a hypocrite, and now just flat out says “he’s a nasty guy, nobody likes him.”
Trump made his “remarks on ABC’s This Week when host George Stephanopolous reminded Trump of Cruz’s attacks on New York City and on Trump personally, and how instead of apologizing, has doubled-down on his attacks:
“He’s doubled-down on this issue of New York City values,” Stephanopoulos told Trump. “He lumped you in yesterday with Hillary Clinton, Andrew Cuomo and Bill de Blasio.” You know, Hillary Clinton, whom he said was great, but now says is terrible.
That was all the encouragement Trump needed:
“Look, the truth is he’s a nasty guy…he’s a nasty guy, nobody likes him. Nobody in Congress likes him. Nobody likes him anywhere once they get to know him. He’s a very – He’s got a edge that’s not good. You can’t make deals with people like that. It’s not a good thing for the country. Very nasty guy.”
Trump went on to rant,
“I’m leading Ted Cruz by a lot. The polls are showing that I’m on the upswing. He’s on a big down swing. But if you look at what he said and the way he said it and the scorn toward New York, I think it’s a disgrace. He’s putting down the great people of New York. Who could have done what New Yorkers did under that unbelievable circumstance [after 9/11]?”
Well, we’ll never know because it didn’t happen to anybody else. But certainly New Orleans response after Katrina was also praise worthy. Trump is right about the resilience displayed by New Yorkers but by raising New Yorkers up on a pedestal, he is doing to others what he is complaining Cruz is doing to New Yorkers.
Contrary to what New Yorkers might think, their city is not the center of the universe. The truth is, such attitudes rankle others, including those living upstate. About the only good thing that can be said of this pointless excursion is that it’s given us all a break from New Hampshire and Iowa.
There are issues the rest of the country cares about, from Los Angeles to St. Louis to Minneapolis to Charleston. But New York is sexy, so the Republican candidates and the media are wasting their time talking about New York.
Cruz’s move was likely a misstep, and it’s hardly a surprise that rather than attack Trump on the issues the would-be messiah attacked his values. By all accounts, Cruz isn’t liked by many, but Cruz being a unreliable and unlikable doesn’t make Donald Trump reliable and unlikable; Donald Trump is not the final arbiter of right and wrong, given his own many hateful and factually dubious statements.
Let’s face it: Trump comes across as a very unpleasant person too. What this all comes down to is that one arrogant bast*rd thinks another arrogant bast*rd is nasty. This is not the basis for deciding an election. And we’ve had other presidents who were “nasty.” Andrew Jackson comes to mind. As one blogger delightfully noted a few years ago,
Andrew Jackson is one of our country’s most beloved asshole-presidents. He displayed many of the qualities so admired in people of the masculine persuasion: blind prejudice and racism, sleaziness, gun-savviness, general douchebaggery, aggressively violent tendencies, a terrible temper, and a complete inability to comprehend a situation in which he might be wrong.
This could be equally a description of either Trump or Cruz.
Then again, the Republican Party is not about facts or actual issues, or even about what’s good for the country, so perhaps this whole debate about New York values is a fitting epithet to the 2016 election cycle.
The truth is, Ted Cruz made a play for Sarah Palin’s “real Americans” gambit that failed so utterly. Ad hominem attacks are all you have when you have no facts, but it is Cruz’s financial disclosures that ought to be the real news.
Hillary and Bernie have begun trading barbs, but not simple insults. Yet nasty guys and hypocrisy seem to increasingly define the GOP presidential field, with nothing resembling an actual issue in sight.
Looking at ratings, media instead gives Trump a platform to shout “hypocrisy!” at Cruz without pointing to Trump’s own hypocrisy. It’s all theater, without the substance even of a thoughtful Hollywood movie. It’s no wonder the GOP hates Hollywood so much. It’s competition for their own fake reality.
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