Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) Uses the Holocaust as a Political Tool to Attack People of Color

On June 11, 2020, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) falsely accused Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) of voting against a House Resolution against antisemitism. Rep. Omar voted in favor of the resolution. Its only opponents were 23 Republicans.

Cruz’s smear came less than one month after he himself opposed and publicly mocked a resolution against antisemitism passed by the San Antonio City Council.

Cruz’s false accusation was tacked onto an already-antisemitic statement: Cruz invoked the Holocaust in an effort to criticize Rep. Omar for accurately calling the mass slaughter of Indigenous people initiated by Christopher Columbus a “genocide.” Cruz’s implication was clear: For Cruz, the Holocaust was a “real” genocide in contrast to the mass slaughter of Indigenous people. Using the Nazis’ mass murder of European Jews to minimize American colonizers’ mass murder of Indigenous people is deeply offensive. This sentiment isolates Jews from other minority groups, and erases the atrocities the United States has committed and continues to commit against Indigenous people.

This was not Cruz’s first time using Jews as a political tool, nor was this his first time being accused of antisemitism. Cruz had previously promoted the antisemitic trope that Jews “own the media,” and during the 2016 Republican Presidential Primary, the Texas Senator was widely criticized for using the antisemitic dog whistle “New York Values.