I’ll always have a soft spot for Ted Cruz. He was the first presidential campaign I worked on. I gave up my winter break senior year to door knock for him in New Hampshire, and would have dropped out of school to take the full time offer I got working for him if my mom would have let me. When I saw that he had dropped out of the race in Indiana, it was senior night at my school. I was drunk and just sat on the ground and started sobbing.
But I’m not going to mince words. It was a horrible decision on his part to head to Cancun while the people that got him in office are freezing, hungry and going without basic necessities. He’s incredibly intelligent, and I can’t wrap my mind around how the optics of taking a vacation during a natural disaster didn’t cross his mind at any point before he was photographed boarding his flight.
As much as it pains me to say it, Ted deserves the heat he’s getting. He’s been in office for 8 years now, and he should have known better. You couldn’t have asked for a better caricature of out of touch elites that are nowhere to be found when they’re needed most. He basically handed the Democrats a silver bullet on a silver platter heading into an election year. I’m not going to criticize AOC for raising money or heading to Texas, but if you think the Democrats aren’t trying to leverage this for 2022 and their decades in the making attempt to turn Texas blue, you’re delusional.
Ted Cruz made a stupid decision, and he must answer to the people of Texas for it. But I’m not going to sit here and pretend that the outrage he’s facing from anyone BUT the people of Texas is genuine, warranted or proportional.
Have we forgotten what’s been going on for the past year?
Politicians have been lecturing us for months on end about staying home, saving lives and wearing masks while they do the exact opposite. They’ve put people out of work, put entire industries on hold, ruined millions of lives — and we’re lucky to get a half assed apology, never mind accountability.
Gavin Newsom went to a lobbyist’s birthday party after shutting down California with some of the most draconian measures in the country, and threatening to cut off his constituents’ power and electricity if they had too many people in their homes.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago was partying in the streets celebrating the media’s premature call for Biden and turned around days later telling Chicago to “cancel Thanksgiving.”
Mayor Muriel Bowser of the District of Columbia traveled to Delaware to congratulate Joe Biden on his election “win” while imposing travel restrictions on 46 of the 50 states (including Delaware).
Nancy Pelosi got her hair done after she shut down salons — and for what it’s worth most salon owners and hairdressers are ineligible for unemployment.
And that’s really just the tip of the iceberg.
What Ted Cruz did was stupid, and it looked really, really bad. But he didn’t travel to Cancun with his family after telling Texans to stay out in their homes without heat, electricity or water. He didn’t hurt anyone, and he didn’t create one set of rules for his constituents and another for himself.
Mind you, Governor Cuomo of New York is under fire for sending COVID positive seniors to nursing homes and the fall out — but this isn’t new information. This has been known since the summer.
But instead of holding him accountable then, he was given a book deal, an Emmy, and praised as some kind of champion that courageously led his state through the pandemic and defeated it when New York was still in shambles.
The difference between what Ted Cruz did and what Cuomo, Lightfoot, Pelosi, Bowser, Newsom and so many others did is in the consequences. Their decisions had disastrous outcomes that will likely be felt for years to come. Ted Cruz’s mistake was foolish, but it was ultimately victimless.
Like I said, Ted Cruz deserves the scrutiny he’s under. But if you’re angrier at Ted Cruz for a poorly timed trip than you are at the people that have been playing politics with our lives for a year now, you’re either a dolt or a hack, and your priorities are in the wrong places.
what do you think?