My use of “New York values” versus Ted Cruz’s use of “New York values”

As a lifelong Midwesterner, it’s hard to resist the opportunity to bash New York City. Another person who likes to bash New York City is Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz, who has made “New York values” a common phrase in his stump speech.

However, the “New York values” I like to bash and the “New York values” that Ted Cruz likes to bash are two different concepts.

The “New York values” I like to bash are corruption and the political boss culture within New York State (especially within New York City), as well as corporate-owned politicians who represent Wall Street’s political interests and not the people of New York. Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY), a pro-Wall Street “Democrat” who is one of the most corrupt elected officials in America, is someone who exemplifies the New York values that I despise. I’ll often use “Chicago values” to mean the same thing in an Illinois context, “Milwaukee values”, “Philadelphia values”, “Los Angeles values”, “Detroit values”, etc. in the context of other states/regions, and, in a national context, “big-city values” or “DNC values” (the latter referring to the corporatist Democratic National Committee).

Ted Cruz, on the other hand, uses “New York values” as a form of coded racism, bashing New York because it has a lot of people who aren’t white, Christian bigots. Additionally, Cruz uses “New York values” to bash fellow Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who is from New York City. This is very common in the Republican Party, in fact, Wisconsin Republican politicians are known for bashing Milwaukee at every opportunity.

However, Cruz sure loves New York values when it comes to filling his campaign coffers with cash:

Ted Cruz might say he has a problem with “New York values,” but he seems happy to take New York money.

The Texas senator’s swipe at Donald Trump in Thursday’s debate didn’t just earn the ire of the New York Daily News (whose front page today showed the Statue of Liberty giving him the finger) and New York Mayor (Bill) de Blasio (who took to CNN demanding an apology) — it also might alienate the city’s donors he has been carefully courting.

Cruz’s campaign raised $223,750 from New Yorkers, according to finance reports available through September. Robert Mercer, the hedge fund investor who has given $11 million to a pro-Cruz super PAC and is one of his most important backers, lives on Long Island.

Ted Cruz may hate New York City just as much as the guys on the old Pace Picante ads, but loves taking New Yorkers’ money.

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Chicago Tribune columnist Kristen McQueary wants a Hurricane Katrina-style event to rid Chicago of black people

Kristen McQueary, a far-right columnist for the Chicago Tribune, recently wrote a column calling for Chicago to be hit with a natural disaster on the level of Hurricane Katrina, which destroyed New Orleans, Louisiana and the surrounding area 10 years ago this month, in order to wipe out what she considers to be Chicago’s problems.

While McQueary, to my knowledge (I haven’t been able to read her column due to the Tribune’s website not working properly), didn’t explicitly call for cleansing of black people in Chicago, it’s evident from her mentality that she thinks that ethnic minorities, especially black people, are what she considers to be Chicago’s problems. In fact, when Katrina devastated New Orleans, it caused New Orleans’s black population to decline, caused New Orleans’s white population to increase in percentage, and made the black people who remained in New Orleans far worse off than they were prior to Katrina. These changes made New Orleans, as a whole, smaller, wealthier, and whiter, however, the people of New Orleans didn’t individually become wealthier because of Katrina, and many people in New Orleans live without running water and electricity nearly ten years after the storm passed. Natural disasters are something I’d never wish on anyone or any place.

McQueary has received a ton of criticism on Twitter over her column, and she deserves every bit of it. Her column is a textbook example of coded white supremacism. In fact, McQueary’s column is leaving me wishing that there was a Joe McCarthy-like figure on the left who’s willing to expose white supremacists in the far-right corporate media in this country.