Photos: AFP ImageBank

D

an Crenshaw is just 35 years old, but he’s already lived in four countries, completed two university degrees, served for ten years in the Navy Seals (including tours in Iraq and Afghanistan) and won his first-ever electoral race, capturing a seat in the US House of Representatives in 2018.

How’s that for an opening act?

He is considered a young political star, one of the hottest names in the Republican Party. How hot? If you type his name into Google, the search engine’s “auto fill” function already provides an entry for “Crenshaw 2024.”

Crenshaw got so far, so fast with an unapologetically conservative agenda, all delivered with a smile. He’s an enthusiastic capitalist who warns that socialism has no place in the United States. He’s a fierce critic of the identity politics and the increasingly radical progressive wing of the Democratic Party. At the same time, he is a peacemaker who promotes respectful political discourse, always looking to discover what unites Americans and not what divides them.

He said socialist candidates like Bernie Sanders are trying to buy people off with campaign promises. “They try to tell them that they can’t take care of themselves. And only the government can take care of them,” Crenshaw told Mishpacha in an exclusive interview.  “That’s a really dishonest and immoral way to run a country, and ultimately, it’s an unsustainable way to run a country.”

His reasonableness was on display in last year’s midterm elections. Three days before he won the race to represent Texas’ s Second District, which covers Houston’s northern suburbs, a comedian on a popular late-night show mocked Crenshaw’s physical appearance: The congressman lost an eye fighting in Afghanistan.

Rather than react in outrage, Crenshaw appeared on the show the following week, accepting an apology from the comedian and taking the opportunity to promote veterans and civil discourse.

“There’s a lot of lessons to learn here,” he said on the show. “Not just that the left and right can still agree on some things, but also this: Americans can forgive one another. We can remember what brings us together as a country and still see the good in each other.”

It was classic Crenshaw: sincere and strong, a political message delivered with a hug and a pat on the back.

A Man of Many Hats

Dan Crenshaw was born in Scotland, the son of a petroleum industry executive. His mother died from cancer when he was just ten years old. The family moved around a lot, living for a number of years in Columbia and Ecuador, where Crenshaw learned to speak Spanish.

As an American who has lived abroad, he understands the challenges of immigrants well. But when considering the United States’ immigration debate, Crenshaw makes a clear distinction between legal immigration and breaking a nation’s laws.

(Excerpted from Mishpacha, Issue 761)