I swear to God, the more I learn about Ted Cruz and his batshit insane father. . . part 4 or 5 or something.

Somehow, Ted Cruz's campaign handlers haven't stopped his lunatic father from speaking in public. So he keeps saying things like this:

Rafael Cruz: Public Education Is A Communist Plot

Rafael Cruz, the father of and top campaign surrogate for Sen. Ted Cruz, claimed today that the country’s public school system was founded by “a member of the American Communist Party.”

Um, what year is it again? I mean, even the Birchers have moved on from the "everything's a Communist plot" motif by now.


Also, America has had public education long before there was any such thing as a "Communist," let alone the "American Communist Party."

According to CityOfBoston.gov:

 The first public school in America was established by Puritan settlers in 1635 in the home of Schoolmaster Philemon Pormont

And here's an excerpt from the education timeline on RaceForward.org ;

1820
First public high school in the U.S., Boston English, opens.
1827
Massachusetts passes a law making all grades of public school open to all pupils free of charge.

1865-1877
African Americans mobilize to bring public education to the South for the first time. After the Civil War, and with the legal end of slavery, African Americans in the South make alliances with white Republicans to push for many political changes, including for the first time rewriting state constitutions to guarantee free public education.

The Communist Manifesto wasn't even published until 1848.

So, which Communist traveled back in time to "found" America's public school system?

The elder Cruz alleged in an interview on the Sirius XM program “Breitbart News Daily” this morning that public schools are brainwashing children into communism as a result of the work of education reformer John Dewey.

John Dewey?

I'm no expert on John Dewey, but was John Dewey a Communist?

 I mean, his glasses probably were, but was he?

Not according to anything I could find online that wasn't from some right-wing hack site like "American Thinker" or "Conservapedia." In fact, he apparently was one of the founders of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, an anti-Communist group with strong ties to the CIA.

But why let the facts get in the way of a good insane rant? Go on, Mr. Cruz.

Cruz spins an imaginative alternate history, in which he identifies John Dewey as the Patient Zero of a virulent depravity known as secular humanism. Dewey, an atheist and (yes) a secular humanist, was also an influential reformer of American education in the early 20th century; Cruz labels him a member of the Communist party. In fact, as Right Wing Watch helpfully notes, Dewey was an “avowed anti-Communist” who advocated that “known Communists should not be permitted to teach children.”
But never mind. This foul doctrine arrived at America’s shores, infiltrated our classrooms — thanks to Dewey, with assists from the Bolsheviks and Teddy Roosevelt — and lured us into a moral relativism that has driven us further and further from our Judeo-Christian origins. And it manifests today in the nefarious educational initiative known as Common Core:

Teddy Roosevelt?!?!?!

Teddy Roosevelt was in on the Communist plot?

The Rough Rider?

My God, this goes all the way to the top! Why even a Senator could be involved. Like Senator Ted Cruz!
Oh, where's Joe McCarthy when you need him?

You rang?

Common Core is not really about standards. That is just a facade. Common Core is about redefining education, redefining history, and attempting to brainwash kids with a secularist view of history, which denies the fundamental principles that have made America great.

God, I wish Common Core was that interesting. Maybe all the hullaballoo would be worth it.

But you know, it says a lot about the Cruz campaign, and the state of Conservative politics in general, that no one has taken Cruz Senior aside and suggested that he maybe tone it down a bit. And I'm pretty sure no one has asked "Ted" whether he disagrees with any of the delirious lunacy his father so regularly spouts. It seems to be taken for granted that this paranoid madness can't hurt his campaign and might even help him. And sadly they're probably right, at least in the primary. He's still not going to win because he's creepy as hell and everyone hates him, but won't be because of Reverend tinfoil.