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| Santería practice on church steps, image via Ghost Lounge. |
"You gotta remember. In all fairness, to the best of my knowledge, not too many evangelicals come out of Cuba, OK? Just remember that, OK? Just remember," he told the crowd in Council Bluffs, Iowa. "When you're casting your ballot, remember."No indeed! What kind of religion comes out of Cuba? Something they don't hear much about in Council Bluffs, I bet!
I mean obviously I'm just kidding about the Santería, and Trump knows nothing whatever about cigar-smoking priestesses and Babalú-Ayé and the other orishas, but he does know exactly what he's doing with his still more ignorant audience, and it does have a distinct racist smell. What he's talking about to Council Bluffs is himself, not Cruz, and his own bizarre claim to be a Christian of the type the Council Bluffs Taliban recognize as one of their own.
He's saying, "Don't pay attention to my ignorance of the Bible, or my wives in their décolleté, look into my German blue eyes."
It's enough to make you want to vote for Cruz—though Cruz is in fact the whitest kind of Cuban you ever want to meet—both his father's parents were Spanish immigrants, born in the Canary Islands, and his US-born mother's name, Darragh, is Irish. It's pretty clear that no Mexican Americans or Puerto Ricans are likely to vote for him, or for Rubio either—and even the conservative Miami Cuban community generally prefers J.E.B. Bush to either, with pretty good reason. You know what I'd use to explain voting for J.E.B., in some horrible imaginary case in which I really had no recourse other than to vote for him? That I believe he would at some point be capable of embarrassment. Not shame, which would be better, but at least embarrassment.
Trump, in contrast, is literally incapable of embarrassment, and Cruz is as well. Rubio too, though he covers it up by looking as if he's dying of embarrassment at all times. Trump and Cruz are going to have an argument about who is a crazier adherent of a Dominionist sect holding that the Constitution is a biblically inspired document forbidding the separation of church and state. "I'm sorry, Donald, but I'm far crazier than you. My father has anointed me the Messiah of America, and I believe him." "Nonsense, Ted, you couldn't possibly be as crazy as I am. After all your family comes from Cuba."
Cross-posted at The Rectification of Names.
And yet, Team Cruz is so far claiming to be completely mystified over to what Jackass Trump is referring.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it obvious? That snake woman GOT to Cruz' pop: bit him right where the sun typically only occasionally in private moments shines.
Certainly it couldn't have been the extraordinarily convenient coincidence of his pop's conversion to Southern Baptist in 1975, could it? Li'l Raf 'Tedders' was fully 4 going on 5 years old in 1975, so clearly junior's conversion from Catholic was a fully informed, deeply considered choice by the tiny tail gunner, si non?
And what a laugh riot it must have been for that crazy Canuck Raf-Ted to grow up in that family unit. Why they're every bit as all-American as the family or Lilly & Roy Dillon!
Every time Donald is on the video I end up laughing in a sort of Hillary-cackle manner. You remember. How she laughed when Gadaffi was sodomised with a bayonet.. like that. Coz he's good,. He's funny. I've got no way of knowing if it's his schtick or whether that's really him. It's pure entertainment.
ReplyDeleteI don't speak Trump so I'm not sure if his implication is that Cruz is some slavering voodoo practitioner or simply an Awful Brown.
ReplyDeleteI mean, there's abundant evidence of how gullible Iowans are but persuading them that Ted Cruz pledges fealty to Papa Legba seems a bit of a stretch.