Cruz (Damage) Control

I don't think I've seen the sort of incompetence over the handling of the power crisis in Texas in any previous crisis, and I remember Hurricane Katrina.  Texas, still thinking it's a independent republic, has its own power grid, and the deregulation of the electricity in the state allowed the grid to remain unwinterized despite the growing evidence that climate change not only causes hotter summer s and stronger hurricanes but colder winters in the nation's midsection thanks to a greater flow of polar air form up north.  Governor Greg Abbott is blaming the failure of the electricity on wind power despite the greater reliance on fossil fuels, and others are fingering the Green New Deal, which, last I checked, hasn't been implemented.  But all of this pales in comparison to how Texas's junior U.S. Senator has handled it.

As you all know by now, Ted Cruz (above) hightailed it out of Houston and took his wife and daughters to Cancun, Mexico to escape the cold while millions of Texans were freezing in the dark with no running water - and the water crisis and the burst pipes resulting from unheated buildings have made things exponentially worse.  Cruz tried to patch things up, saying that was only going to drop off his daughters and come back (not true), the trip had been planned ahead of time (it was a last-minute decision) and that he shouldn't have taken his daughters' advice to take the family to Mexico (sure, blame the kids, especially when your kids are girls).  And then he admitted it was a "mistake."

The only reason that isn't an understatement is because Cruz tried to stop Joe Biden's election to the President during the Capitol insurrection and hasn't even admitted to that being a mistake.  Everything Cruz does is meant to further his own interests and make himself look good. Too bad for him that he won't succeed at that.  Democrats and Republicans rarely agree on anything in Washington, by Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Senate all agree that Cruz is the biggest schmuck in the upper house of Congress and everyone hates him.

While Cruz was trying to get away to Cancun, Beto O'Rourke was back home in Texas distributing emergency supplies to local residents and getting others to help pitch in.  In other words, exactly what Cruz is supposed to do. You'd be forgiven for thinking that O'Rourke and not Cruz had won the 2018 Senate election in Texas.  In 2024, when Cruz is up again, that outcome is very much a possibility.