World Class Hypocrisy

Ted Cruz has no Shame.   None.  

Hypocrisy this bold has consequences.  

 

A first temptation is to laugh it off and consider it just the normal way of politics, a perfect item for a late night comedy program to point out.

The consequences are bigger than that.   Only 56% of the eligible voters of voting age in America voted.   Either they didn't care or they cared and did not like any candidate enough to vote.  Gallup's ongoing poll shows that 19% if Americans approve of congress and 76% disapprove.   The institutions of self-government have lost credibility.  

Does this matter?  It matters all the time and In a time of stress or crisis the credibility of the institutions are what preserve a constitutional system.  The checks and balances of a constitutional system require people actually to care and demand that the system work.   The court system has no army.  Only the credibility of the system of laws put constraints on the people who carry rifles and command tanks and fighter jets.  The police and military forces accept the command of civilian government because they choose to and because they accept that the public expects and utterly demands no less.   Laws are obeyed because there is a broad consensus that they have legitimacy.

Thought experiment:   Imagine your relationship to a tradesman at your house, an employee, or an acquaintance.   Imagine a plumber insists that the line from a toilet is broken and needs replacement at a cost of $1,000.  You authorize it and he does the work.   Then, imagine three months later you overhear that plumber saying that toilet problems are never, ever a broken line, that this is a scam and ripoff, and that he is adamant in reporting plumbers who resort to the "broken line scam."  That plumber would have lost all credibility with you.   You would consider him a thief, or a liar, or both.  Certainly he is a hypocrite.

Don't just block Obama, block Hillary, too

Politicians who are overtly hypocritical, knowing they are recorded in headlines and news stories and on videotape, are stealing from the well of civic trust in self government.  The fact that they brazenly do it demonstrates how confident they are that voters have already become fatally jaded.

Here is a current example.  Ted Cruz

Antonin Scalia died in February, 2016.   President Obama nominated Merrick Garland to replace him.  Obama had about 11 months left in his 4 year term.   The Republican position was that no nominee of Obama would be considered to fill the Supreme Court position, period, regardless of his "moderation" or inherent judicial qualities.

Senator Ted Cruz not only participated in that, he doubled down.  In the weeks when it appeared very likely that Hillary Clinton would win election Cruz announced that even if she won a Republican majority senate should refuse to consider anyone.   We should hold the seat open for another 4 years, he said.  We don't need nine justices, he said.   

  

Ignore the election

Ted Cruz was announcing that any and all Hillary Clinton nominees should be ignored, sight unseen, for her term.  His position rescinded the earlier position that a president should not fill a vacancy with a year to go in his term because it should be decided in the election.   Obama's election did not matter, but the 2016 election would.   

Then, in the face of Hillary's presumed election he said that her election would not matter either.  He would oppose all Hillary Clinton nominees, as a matter of principle.

Last night, I receive the email below.

Note the tone of outrage and indignation that Democrats could consider filibustering a Supreme Court nomination.   How ridiculous.  The president was elected and he had 4 years to nominate someone.  Don't let the Democrats destroy the constitution!

"These threats are being made without even knowing the name, let alone record, of the president's choice."   He is accusing Democrats of doing exactly what he was just asserting he should do.   It is outrageous, Cruz writes, and it is "pure politics."    Politics is another word for self-government.   Cruz has made "politics" a synonym for hypocrisy and simultaneously proven the point.