Ted Cruz

He carefully crafted a public image as a family man devoted to Catholic social teaching, but the reality was much darker.

Chavez's philosophy echoes Marxist rhetoric about the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.

At a UFW convention in 1981, Chavez proclaimed, I would not take one cup of coffee from a grower, and he means a farmer.

There's not a good one.

I hate them.

A few presents, a little talk, then the noose.

That's how capitalism works.

This is the hero of the left.

It isn't just his rhetoric that sounds alarm bells.

Early in his career, he worked with Saul Alinsky, the community organizer who defined the modern leftist playbook in Rules for Radicals.

Chavez and the UFW later implemented Alinsky's tactics, fostering confrontational, divisive organizing.

Then there is the recent revelation of his extensive sexual abuse of minors.

The behavior is not distinct from other far-left figures, such as Joseph Stalin to Mao to Kim Jong-il.

Communist and socialist leaders often share a troubling connection to sexual predation.

We should not be surprised that evil ideology attracts evil people.

By the way, that's a sentence worth remembering.

We should not be surprised that evil ideology attracts evil people.

If the warning signs around Chavez have existed for decades, why did he become the face of an entire ethnicity in America?

Partly because he was effective at mobilizing Mexican Americans in California using rhetoric that created a lasting us versus them mentality.

Yep.