By current standards, Chris Wallace at Fox is not a complete hack. And because Fox's conservative bona fides are rock solid, they often have tougher Sunday morning show questions to Republicans than the paralyzed Gregory or Stephanopolus. I might have to add Fox's Sunday show to my DVR. Anyway, below is Chris Wallace asking Ted Cruz to explain how his migrant border position "helps the kids" — which is the kind of BS piety that Republicans now need to posture about:
Wallace later asked Cruz why he felt his plan helped the children crossing the border.
“You keep talking about helping the kids,” Wallace said. “One question I have is, how do you help the kids — I understand how it helps the United States not to allow them to come into this country. How does it help the kids to just say, ‘Hey, you’ve got to stay in Central America?’”
Wallace mentioned the high murder rate in some Central American countries.
In response, Cruz launched into a monologue about the horrific journeys some of the children go through as they are transported by drug cartels.
“Horrifically, they’re cutting off body parts, and they’re sending it back to the families," Cruz said. “It’s not humane, it’s not compassionate, and that’s what Harry Reid and the Democrats want to do. They don’t want to fix the problem, they want to keep having children come in in a situation where they’re brutalized.”
This talking point has swept Republican circles, and it is typically transparent. According to this fantasy, there is no violence/chaos/poverty in Central America. None; it is just gone. All of the violence, etc. occurs en route to the U.S. (which is also true). Republicans are trying only to stop kids from being raped, beaten, exploited, killed on the journey to the U.S., but there are no such issues in terms of returning these kids to their Central American home countries. The chaos/cruelty starts on the journey only, and - worse - Obama is luring these kids from one safe place (home) to another safe place (the U.S.) to inexplicably be brutalized during this interim trip.
In the 1980's and 1990's (and before), I think the Republicans would have had the same hard-hearted "send the kids home" message, but they wouldn't have felt the need to sugar coat it. What you see now is the transition of the Republican party from a bottom-line "bidness" identity (telling supposed "hard truths") to an evangelical identity (struggling to reconcile hate, fear and self-interest as "Christian values") . It is really uncomfortable to that evangelical identity to admit that you don't give a shit about these kids. But they should be hammered on these points. It not only isn't true, but they seem insecure about it - - let's not let them off the hook so easily.