“Communism needs to undermine the construct of god because government must become your god,” he said, later arguing that atheism and evolution are inherently un-American because they contradict his belief that the United States is a “Christian country.”
Cruz, 85, has been a vocal opponent of communism for decades. He fled Cuba in the 1950s after he was imprisoned and tortured for fighting Fulgencio Batista, a dictator who was once allied with Cuba’s communist party but later oversaw the brutal repression of communists, with aid from the CIA. According to a 2015 book authored by his son, Rafael Cruz initially supported Fidel Castro, but changed his mind after Castro seized power in 1959 and “declared to the world that he was a communist.” Cruz’s role in the Cuban resistance has been disputed by some Cubans who knew him at the time.
In the decades since immigrating, Cruz has been a leading advocate for Christian dominionism, which argues that the Bible commands Christians to have “dominion” over all parts of society in order to bring about the apocalypse. Dominionists and their allies have focused heavily on public schools, arguing that church-state separation is a myth that has been used to obscure the nation’s true, Christian roots — often, they claim, at the behest of “godless” communists intent on destroying America and its churches…