Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz is saddened by murders in Colorado Springs, even though they were committed by a terrorist citing the precise conspiracy theory against Planned Parenthood that Ted Cruz has personally been blasting from the campaign trail at every opportunity. But he, like Carly Fiorina and Mike Huckabee, is very cross that the man murdering people at Planned Parenthood while referencing the Republican Party's current omnipresent conspiracy theory against Planned Parenthood is being associated with people like himself who made that specific conspiracy theory a cornerstone of current Republican rhetoric.
No sir, says the stupidest man to ever wipe his shoes on the Senate carpets, that guy must plum be a gay-boy lefty or something, and also flapjack lifejacket baconpants.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) condemned the fatal shooting of three people at a Planned Parenthood location in Colorado, but aggressively pushed back on suggestions the shooter was part of the anti-abortion movement, saying the shooter had "also been reported that he was registered as an independent and a woman and a transgendered leftist activist."
Speaking to reporters after a stop Sunday afternoon, Cruz rejected a potential connection between anti-abortion activism and the shooting, instead taking issue with "some vicious rhetoric on the left blaming those who are pro-life.”
Yes, yes. It's very sad that those people were murdered, but the real cruelty here is that people keep pointing out the murderer echoed a specific conspiracy theory against Planned Parenthood that Republicans have been drilling into the public consciousness for months now, and campaigning off of, and sending out fundraising letters about.
Because I know the Ted Cruz Theory is going to take some translation, let me explain: Sitting senator Ted Cruz, who wants to become our president, is referencing a claim from a far-right conspiracy-promoting nutcase who has been known for many years as The Dumbest Man On The Internet. The Dumbest Man on the Internet, whose title comes from a long history of falling for obvious hoaxes when he is not inventing his own, “reports” that the domestic terrorist's sex was reported as female on a single voter registration form. The obvious conclusion drawn from this in the Dumbest Man’s mind is not that the form is in error, but that the grizzled man ranting anti-abortion conspiracy theories and passing out anti-Obama pamphlets whose many interviewed acquaintances never at any point mentioned him being "transgendered" must secretly be a transgendered woman, and therefore a "leftist activist." Why? Because fuck if anybody knows, and that is about as polite as I can possibly be in explaining a far-right mindset that has at this point not only incited a specific act of terrorism but is now engaged in even more outlandish counterfactual carpet-bombings in order to deny it had anything to do with those previous well-documented ravings.
If you believe this conspiracy theory to be so comical as to defy the bounds of this universe's logic, remember that it is being promoted by the same minds that have absolutely convinced themselves that there is an underground Planned Parenthood "swap meet" for "baby parts"—possibly held in a secret "abortionplex" that only conservatives know about. There is no such thing as a conspiracy theory too stupid to be promoted by the Dumbest Man on the Internet, and there is no conspiracy theory that actual sitting senator Ted Cruz will not stick up his nose and snort into his cavernous, echoing head.
Bonus points, however, to the reporter who dutifully repeated Ted Cruz's "transgendered leftist activist" claim without no actual attempt to point out that that claim is Obviously Fucking Insane. A crackerjack job, there, truth-seekers.
Ted Cruz's willingness to be seen as a malevolent, gobsmackingly stupid ass rather than being a promoter of domestic terrorism is understandable. He is in a tight spot, having spent the last week touting the endorsement of one of the anti-abortion activists most directly responsible for creating the anti-Planned Parenthood "baby parts" conspiracy theory Cruz and other Republicans are publicizing on the campaign trail. That activist would be Troy Newman, Operation Rescue head and a figure closely associated with far-right domestic terrorism against abortion providers.
So Ted Cruz is denying association with acts of domestic terrorism while, quite literally, touting the endorsement of a man who has declared that such acts are, quote, "justifiable" in service to the anti-abortion cause. And now he's suggesting that perhaps it was the work of a transgendered leftist all along.
There's a point when propaganda becomes dangerous. There's a point when obvious lies in service to an ideological cause become not just malevolent, but the work of sociopathy or—after violence has occurred based on those lies—outright psychopathy. We have passed that point.