US Senator Ted Cruz calls Putin ‘left-wing dictator’ in attempt to outdo liberals calling him #KremlinCruz in their Russophobia

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has pushed back against liberals dubbing him ‘KremlinCruz’ by joining in on the Russia bashing and labeling Vladimir Putin a “left-wing dictator.”

Cruz found himself trending on social media following remarks he made about a video mashing up military recruiting in the US and Russia.

“Perhaps a woke, emasculated military is not the best idea,” Cruz tweeted.

While the Russian military recruitment ad, which dates back to 2014, focused on soldiers pushing themselves to the limits, the US video is an animated ad with a young girl saying she’s defended “equality” from an early age and shows her marching in protests with signs with statements such as, “respect everyone” and “love each other.” 

While new ‘woke’ recruitment ads from the Pentagon have received plenty of pushback, Cruz was accused of spreading “Russian propaganda” with his tweet and was even dubbed ‘KremlinCruz’ by infamous MSNBC anchor Brian Williams, a nickname that became a trending hashtag for Cruz critics.

After pushing back against Williams, Cruz decided to jump in on the Russian mudslinging and accused his critics of being Russian apologists.

“Colonel Vladimir Putin of the KGB is—and always has been—a communist,” Cruz tweeted on Saturday. “Most brutal left-wing dictators are.”

While Cruz’s Twitter account has become more and more of a trolling exercise in the absence of Donald Trump on the platform, his latest low-hanging fruit dig is a disappointment, even by those standards. 

As Cruz pointed out in separate tweets, the ‘KremlinCruz’ nickname did not make sense, mainly because the senator was not favorably comparing Russia to the US, but rather using the recruitment ad to contrast with a move toward wokeness in America’s defense forces. 

Liberals like Williams quickly spun this as promoting “Russian propaganda” because that has been the media’s go-to game for years now, the trouble being modern-day Russian horror stories from politicians and pundits turn out to be smoke and mirrors. 

Remember the New York Times’ explosive story about the Russian government putting out bounties in Afghanistan against US soldiers? While promoted by multiple lawmakers, the story has been all but disproven at this point. 

Then there was Russiagate, of course, an investigation into alleged collusion that cost taxpayers millions and ended with a shrug of the shoulders. 

Nicknames like ‘KremlinCruz’ are expected from folks like Williams because that’s been the strategy of the media and liberal politicians in a post-Trump world: pretend it’s the red scare all over again and attach your political enemies to Russia, hoping vague notions of some evil communist empire spring to mind for ill-informed voters and they get scared into voting your way. 

Cruz using terms like “left-wing” and “communist” is really not part of any intellectual argument, but rather a partisan one, very similar in shape and size to the ones his critics are making. Because terms like “left-wing” are so subjective to the average person, Cruz is employing them to rally his base and make essentially the same argument Williams and others are making about him by accusing them of being Russian apologists. 

Ask the average American what issues they want to see their elected representatives tackling, and Russia is likely to fall pretty low on the list – recent polling shows even foreign policy in general lags behind numerous other issues. The name has been turned into a political weapon based on nothing except the need to disqualify the opinion of another without making one of your own.

If other Republicans follow Cruz’s lead and enter themselves into a competition over who can scream “Russia” the loudest between them and the Democrats, then there really may be no future for either major political party. 

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