Ted Cruz is an Unwitting Publicist for Left-Leaning Books
As Sen. Ted Cruz questioned President Biden’s Supreme Court nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson, on Tuesday at her Senate confirmation hearing, the Republican from Texas one-by-one held up books “either assigned or recommended,” he said, to students at a D.C. prep school where the judge is on the board of trustees.
“If you look at the Georgetown Day School’s curriculum, it is filled and overflowing with critical race theory,” Cruz said, referring to the intellectual movement that examines the way policies and laws perpetuate systemic racism. Combating the movement has become a rallying cry for conservatives.
Among the stack was a white paperback with large, bright orange letters: “The End of Policing,” Alex S. Vitale’s 2017 book that analyzes modern policing and makes the case for defunding the police.
But Cruz’s use of the prop had a different outcome than the senator probably intended. Sales of the book are skyrocketing.
“Thanks to Ted Cruz, The End of Policing is now the #1 Best Seller in Gov. Social Policy,” Vitale tweeted Tuesday, including a screenshot of the Amazon ranking.
As of Friday morning, the book is No. 1 in Amazon’s sociology of race relations category.
Other books highlighted by Cruz have also climbed the charts. Ibram X. Kendi’s “How to be an Antiracist” is No. 2 in race relations, and his children’s book “Antiracist Baby,” which Cruz gave considerable screen time, is the No. 1 children’s book and the No. 2 bestseller for all books sold on Amazon. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
In a statement on Twitter, Vitale said he was “honored” Cruz recognized his book as a critical race theory text. Still, he added that he found the senator’s reference to the book misguided in the context of questioning Jackson.
“This seems to be just another example of the Senator’s intentional confusing of a specific school of legal scholarship and the broader effort to shed light on the nature and history of racism in America,” wrote Vitale, a sociology professor at Brooklyn College who was born and raised in Texas.