Ted Cruz is one of the leading Republican presidential candidates at the moment, but both members of his party and other parties agree that he seems unlikeable. Cruz is known for his extreme religious views and his affiliation with the Tea Party, and many of his fellow senators have publicly declared that he is a “jackass.” Even former President George W. Bush, who is revered by most Republicans, refused to give Cruz a job after he worked on the Bush election campaign because Bush said:
“I just don’t like the guy.”
As Cruz continues to be a candidate for the Republican nomination, more and more stories of his unlikable behavior have continued to surface. One of Cruz’s college roommates said that
“I would rather have anybody else be the president of the United States. Anyone. I would rather pick somebody from the phone book.”
Most of the vitriol towards Cruz seems to be due to his tendency towards self-righteousness, arrogance, abrasiveness, and rudeness. Whenever anyone fails to live up to Cruz’s standards, they seem to be met with vocal disdain and rudeness from Cruz.
A particularly concerning story has recently surfaced from Cruz’s days as a student at Princeton. When a classmate, Mikaela Beardsley, told him about her mother sadly deciding to have an abortion because she could not support another child, Cruz’s reaction was heartless. After Mikaela told him that the abortion was “a very difficult, painful decision for my mother,” Cruz told her that Beardsley’s mother “was going to hell and was a whore.”
This response shows a man whose first instinct is to judge instead of to empathize with people in a difficult situation. That would be disturbing enough, but it is extremely telling that Cruz called a woman a whore merely because he disagreed with her decision. The tendency to immediately react to a woman by casting aspersions towards her reputation and sexuality is incredibly sexist. Some of Cruz’s supporters have responded to all of these revelations by stating that he was a young man who has changed and become more reasonable, but his actions do not support those claims.
Cruz’s actions in Congress continue to show a sense of hypocrisy and disregard for fellow human beings. For example, Cruz’s response towards the crisis of undrinkable water in Flint was to hand out water only to pro-life “pregnancy crisis centers,” that focus on lying to women to stop them from having abortions. Cruz seems to believe that people only deserve his help if they live up to his standards, even though he seems to disregard these standards when it suits his own ambitions. Though he seems to have some support from evangelical circles, this sense of hypocrisy, rudeness, and lack of charity may end up causing the same evangelical groups to turn against Cruz. His political views may be receiving some support, but his personality makes Cruz seem like a poor choice for the person who should be representing our nation.