Ted Cruz Is Using a Black Man's Death to Entice Voters
On Monday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and his wife Heidi had reserved a table at Fiola, a fancy Italian spot on Pennsylvania Avenue, a few blocks from the White House. Before the senator could even take his coat off, demonstrators disrupted his date night.
“We believe survivors!” they chanted, protesting Cruz’s support of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. None of them mentioned Botham Shem Jean’s name, despite their presumed affiliation with an Antifa faction called Smash Racism DC. The group later posted the video online with a caustic statement directed partly at Cruz. Oddly enough, Jean’s name was absent from that, too.
I say that because only last Friday, Cruz’s campaign all but asked racists to vote for him — exploiting the shooting death of Jean, 26, in the process. Yet nothing from the anti-racism group on that. Alas.
Perhaps they didn’t see the tweet. During Cruz’s first debate with his senate challenger, Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX), Cruz’s campaign posted this:
Link to tweet
In the clip, O’Rourke is inside a church speaking before a predominantly black congregation. He discusses Jean’s September 6th shooting at the hands of Amber Guyger, who was then an officer with the Dallas Police Department. “How can it be, in this day and age, in this very year, in this community, that a young man, African American, in his own apartment is shot and killed by a police officer?” O’Rourke asks.
The applause builds, and attendees begin to rise from the pews. “And when we all want justice and the facts and the information to make an informed decision, what is released to the public? That he had a small amount of marijuana in his kitchen.” He’s referring to the Dallas PD’s attempt to sully Jean’s character with a search warrant showing that he had 10.4 grams of marijuana in several baggies inside his apartment. That would have meant something if Guyger had a warrant for that weed. Instead, she illegally entered his residence, later claiming that she mistook it for her own. Guyger then fired twice at Jean, striking him once in the torso.
“How can that be just in this country?” O’Rourke demands, surely knowing the answer. Everyone is standing by now. “How can we continue to lose the lives of unarmed black men in the United States of America at the hands of white police officers? That is not justice. That is not us. That can and must change. Are you with me on this?”
-snip-
The church video looks like a political ad for O’Rourke, and a good one. It wouldn’t have been strange to hear his voice at the end saying that he “approves this message.” Theoretically, Texas Democrats could be using it to help turn out the African American vote.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/ted-cruz-beto-orourke-texas-729594/