"Leaders stay with the ship."
The southern United States received an arctic blast of snow and cold this week,
knocking out power and water across Texas, a state widely known to be owned by the devil
and kept as a rental, because Hell is more comfortable.
As temps plunged into the single digits, power generating elements of ERCOT, which
oversees the Texas power grid —
the "R" stands for "Reliability," folks — dropped offline; wind turbines froze
up and failed, and conventional plants also failed, due to natural gas lines
and instruments freezing:
[ERCOT] said Feb. 15 that about 34 gigawatts of power were offline. But of that, about
4 gigawatts was due to problems with wind turbines. The rest came mainly from the state’s
primary sources, natural gas and coal.1
Flyin' Ted
One promeninent source of hot air for Texas, Sen. Ted Cruz, opted out of the cold
and misery his fellow Texans were enduring, and jumped on a plane headed for Cancún,
Mexico — a trip The New York Times learned was organized by Mrs. Cruz and
included invitations to others via text messages. The plan was for the family to remain
at a resort there through the weekend.2
Twitter-enabled Netizens photographed Sen. Cruz at the airport and on the plane,
and shivering Texans did not react well: 3
What can boil in Texas without power or water? Texans' blood can, after seeing that tweet.
Many wasted no time in sending Cruz (and even Gov. Abbott) images of destruction
to their homes, images of empty store shelves, images of melting snow so they could
flush their toilets, with remarks loaded with sarcasm: 4
Some were more direct.
There are more. Many, many more.
During the days I and my family were without power, I felt a stinging guilt for not having loaded up on
firewood and fire-starter logs in advance. We paid for it dearly: though we were unable to find wood anywhere
(once my wife could get her 4x4 out and onto the street), she did find an open Home Depot and bought a
battery-op reciprocating saw and circular saw, which we used to cut apart a fallen tree limb and some slats
from an old bed. I also picked a few expendable pieces of furniture to burn. I wasn't quite Chevy Chase walking
the house with a chainsaw (Christmas Vacation is a must-watch every December), but my hands and feet
were very cold. Something was going to take one for the team.
During the same period, ice had formed over our pool because the pumps had been dormant. Apart from
breaking the ice apart on the surface when power returned, we also dumped snow into the pool to bring the water
level up enough to allow it to flow back to the pump via the returns.
Many Texans were also without water service because of a combination of lack of power and the effects of the
storm (ice). Many communities, once water service was restored, warned their citizens to boil their water
prior to consumption. Mine was briefly under such a warning, though we didn't notice being without
both power and water simultaneously (I think we heard later that we actually were).
Lyin' Ted
In the land of "Come and take it," Cruz cannot expect to be let off easy for this gaffe. What's worse, he
lied about it at least twice.
From Buzzfeed News:
Sources told the Associated Press, New York Times, and CNN that Cruz went with his family for a long-planned
trip to Cancún and was expected to return immediately on Thursday.
5
Yet the text thread reported by
The New York Times (
ob. cit.) shows the trip was actually
a last-minute idea, because poor Mrs. Cruz was chilly (insert frowny-face emoji here):
When Ms. Cruz wrote to the group text chain of neighbors trying to weather the extreme conditions early
Wednesday, she said the family had been staying with friends to keep warm, but quickly pivoted to
offering an invitation to get away. "Anyone can or want to leave for the week?" she wrote. "We may go
to Cancún." She teased a "direct flight" and "hotels w capacity. Seriously." Ms. Cruz promptly shared
details for a Wednesday afternoon departure, a Sunday return trip and a luxurious stay at the oceanfront
Ritz-Carlton in the meantime.
Clearly this was not a "long-planned trip" as was suggested.
Cruz was also caught trying to worm his way out of it, telling Buzzfeed News (ob. cit.)
"that his daughters wanted to take a trip with their friends after school was canceled for the week", and
adding, "Wanting to be a good dad, I flew down with them last night and am flying back this afternoon."
Again, the text thread obtained by The New York Times completely contradicts his explanation.
This wasn't about "being a good dad." This was about taking a fucking vacation in the Mexican sun despite
extended power outages, ice, snow, and even a handful of constituents' deaths.
HuffPost remarked:
[The New York Times'] report contradicted the senator's flimsy claim that he was merely granting
his daughters' wish for a vacation with their friends and was accompanying them when the family jetted off
to Cancún this week. He later conceded he had planned to stay through the weekend, but Heidi Cruz's messages
to pals seemed to indicate a grander getaway. 6
If you really wanted to be a good dad, Senator, you should have put some food on the grill, built a
fire in the fireplace, and used it as an opportunity to make some sweet memories with your family.
Am I saying I wouldn't have packed us up and headed for Cancún for a few days? Well, I didn't, because
I don't have the money to spare. But if money was no concern, I would have gone SINCE I'M NOT A U.S.
SENATOR, WITH MILLIONS OF CONSTITUENTS WHO ARE FREEZING.
It sure seems to me the ONLY reason he flew back to Texas the following day was because he KNEW he'd
been busted at the Houston airport and was in for a world of shit. He wasn't going down to drop anybody
off; he came back because he knew what he was in for. This offers an extremely low estimation of you,
Mister Senator.
#hyprocrite
In early December, Sen. Cruz blasted Mayor Adler of Austin for telling his constituents FROM CABO SAN
LUCAS to stay home:
... yet he flies to Cancún in the middle of this winter storm.
Yes. Complete and utter hypocrite. That's YOU, Mister Senator.
Also:
... And Shown Up by Dems
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) started a campaign that raised OVER $3 MILLION for Texas relief.
Contrast with Sen. Cruz, who — say it with me now — boarded a plane for Cancún: 7,
8
My Conclusion
Among lively discussions on Facebook, one contributor had only this to say: "Fuck him. Fuck him right
in the face."
Others didn't necessarily defend his selfish actions per se, but one offered his personal doubt that the
senator could have contributed anything to help the situation. Perhaps beside the point, he also opined
that Texas hadn't asked for federal aid (others replied with multiple examples of the Governor doing exactly
that).
For me, this all comes back to optics — a highly contextualized term to which I was introduced in
my overseas military service. Whether Sen. Cruz could have directly contributed anything to aid his
constituents is actually immaterial. What's important is that he was caught heading to Mexico during
this terrible disaster.
Leadership happens by example. Senator Cruz just plainly showed Texas that he selfishly doesn't give
a fuck about them or their problems. He also showed them, with some assistance from Twitter and
the media, that he has the means to fly his family to Cancún for a few days, and that the present state of
affairs in Texas wasn't so troublesome as to prevent him from leaving.
These were his actions: He walked into the airport in Houston. He went to the gate of a flight headed for
Cancún. He boarded that flight.
So these are the optics of those actions: Consituents perceived he was running away while they suffered,
and, as news spread, people were rightly outraged.
He could have avoided this. Even if he sat in a wingback chair in front of a fireplace for the whole
week, he wouldn't have pissed anyone off... perhaps at least until AOC started fundraising for Texans;
at this point perhaps some may have stirred.
Perhaps Texans will remember this. I mean, I doubt anyone will forget the winter storm and the power
outages and putting snow in the toilets and all that. Perhaps Texans will remember that Sen. Ted Cruz
just fucking left us all while he selfishly evac'd his family to the Ritz-Carlton in balmy Cancún.
The ONLY reason TFC hopped a return flight on Thursday was to save his slimy lyin' flyin' skin. Making
this worse for himself, he looked right in the camera and told lies. Caught and called out. THEN resourceful
Netizens piled on with examples of Cruz calling out others who did the exact same thing HE JUST DID.
If he was your employee, would you keep him? You know he's supposed to be working for US, right?
By the way, VANITY FAIR's article on the misadventure includes a sentence others don't: The
Cruzes apparently left their dog (ironically, named "Snowflake") there in their powerless home. The word
VF used was "abandoned," 9 but this could be misleading: Mention of "Snowflake" can be traced
back to an article from The Intelligencer in which the reporter, outside the Cruz home in
Houston, was told by a security guard that he was looking after the dog. 10