Ted Cruz more embarrassed being caught in Mexico than facilitating an insurrection
Ted Cruz tried to slither around the coverage of his holiday in Cancun, including an interview on Hannity to offset a series of lies once social media caught him at the airport. #TedFled because he’s really not all about the accountability or even patriotism considering his role in the insurrection.
Cruz's Cancún excursion? It was a real slap in the face to millions of Texans still in the dark. We talked about that with @TexasTribAbby.
Learn more: https://t.co/DIRfDqLcTI#11thHour pic.twitter.com/IlmaYsDnC4
— 11th Hour (@11thHour) February 19, 2021
Protecting the guy who is worried citizens he is supposed to be representing may want to ask him about the insurrection. https://t.co/0R8xEMSSj8
— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) February 18, 2021
Cruz’s callousness about his constituents’ suffering is not just morally appalling. It is also—and this probably weighs more heavily on Cruz—politically dangerous.
Ted Cruz isn't a hypocrite. He's guilty of something worse: a sincere ideological failure of imagination and leadership https://t.co/oUeSViY90d
— David A. Graham (@GrahamDavidA) February 18, 2021
Cruz’s appeal as a politician, such as it is, has never been about being lovable or relatable, but the latest incident is embarrassing even by his standards. He was spotted on a flight to Mexico yesterday, amid a catastrophic storm that has left Texans without power, heat, and sometimes water, huddled in freezing homes and community centers as the state’s electrical grid verges on collapse. More than a dozen of his constituents have already died. Cruz is headed home today—if not necessarily chastened, at least eager to control the damage. In a statement, he said he took the trip at his daughters’ behest. Blaming your children is a curious tack for an embattled politician, but he doesn’t have much else to work with.
The pile-on was nearly as fierce as the storm. A Cruz tweet from December resurfaced in which he lambasted the mayor of Austin, a Democrat, for flying to Cabo San Lucas during coronavirus stay-at-home orders. “Hypocrites. Complete and utter hypocrites,” Cruz wrote at the time.
It is tempting to turn the “hypocrite” label on Cruz, but his sin is worse. Every politician is a hypocrite at some point. Cruz’s error is not that he was shirking a duty he knew he should have been performing. It’s that he couldn’t think of any way he could use his power as a U.S. senator to help Texans in need. That’s a failure of imagination and of political ideology.
“Ted Cruz sees his job as basically being a guy who records a podcast, goes on Fox News, and tweets snarky jokes. And increasingly, that’s what being a conservative politician is. It’s a form of performative trolling,” says @chrislhayes.
PICTURED: A dangerous refugee sneaking across the Mexican border. https://t.co/mXgY3kQMbe
— Jimmy Kimmel (@jimmykimmel) February 18, 2021
NEW VIDEO📽️: While millions of Texans are without power, Senator Ted Cruz abandoned them to take a vacation in Cancun. While Cruz was in the United Airlines VIP lounge, Texans were dying. Ted Cruz doesn't care about Texas families.
RT if you agree it's time to #CancelCancunCruz pic.twitter.com/dgnnkJZmdT
— ReallyAmerican.com 🇺🇸 (@ReallyAmerican1) February 19, 2021
In the last half-century, there have been more and more power outages because of weather.
But there’s a way to make our power grids it more resilient. @umairfan explains: https://t.co/xpR2u1Rzaz
— Vox (@voxdotcom) February 19, 2021
Just drove by Ted Cruz’s house in Houston. His lights are off but a neighbor told me the block got its power back last night. Also, Ted appears to have left behind the family poodle. pic.twitter.com/TmLyGQkASy
— Michael Hardy (@mkerrhardy) February 18, 2021
“You’re not mopping fast enough. (Laughter) That’s a socialist mop. (Laughter and applause) Grab a mop — let’s get to work.” – Barack Obama (2009); “Soyez réalistes, demandez l’impossible!”
