HUBRIS, PATHOS...NEMESIS

Why You Really, Really Should Pity Ted Cruz’s Greek Tragedy

For the Texas junior senator, just doing his job proved to be a Herculean task.

Opinion

Poor Ted Cruz. The guy can’t even take an expensive international vacation without facing criticism for abandoning his constituents during moments of crisis. First there was that Cancun getaway back in 2021, a ploy to escape Texas while his state suffered a cold snap and widespread electricity outages.

Then, last week, there was a pre-planned Greek holiday which found the good senator lining up to tour the Parthenon a day after floodwaters fatally swept away dozens of Texans.

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Cruz did head home to deal with the crisis but, as the Daily Beast reported, his return seemed marked with, shall we say, a lack of urgency.

It’s not like Cruz is the only American senator who enjoys life’s finer things. Nor is he the only one to jet off to far-flung locales after the strenuous workload subsides for a few moments. (If you sense any sarcasm on behalf of this writer when describing the Senate’s duties, that was not the intention, nosiree.)

But Cruz isn’t a traditional politician in the sense that traditional politicians have people who actually like them. Not so much the junior senator from the Lone Star State; Al Franken’s infamous quote remains as relevant today as when he first wrote it: “I like Ted Cruz more than most of my other colleagues like Ted Cruz. And I hate Ted Cruz.”

Ted Cruz is so unpopular Stephen Miller feels bad for him.

So when he makes a misstep, the footprint kicks up a little more dust. To be out of the country a second time during a Texas tragedy looks bad. To be out of the country a second time during a Texas tragedy while also being Ted Cruz looks even worse.

Which is why I actually have some sympathy for the guy. Imagine how much energy it requires to constantly be eating s--t. Day after day of eating s--t on the Senate floor. Day after day of doing truly gross things like blocking a ceremonial bipartisan resolution honoring Ruth Bader Ginsburg or voting against capping the cost of insulin. Plus there’s the energy expenditure that surely comes with pretending to be some rootin-tootin’ Texas cowboy instead of the oleaginous quacksalver with Harvard pedigree he actually is. There’s a reason his chin-enhancing beard earned him the sobriquet “Wolverpeen.” Hugh Jackoff deserves a vacation!

And yes, that Greek vacation had been planned. Cruz was already there when the floods came. He got home as soon as he could, or so he claimed despite the fact that earlier flights were available. But did those flights have first-class seats available or would the Senator have been forced to fly in steerage with the hoi polloi? What was the meal selection like? Were the seats lie flat or almost lie flat? Nobody in the lamestream media even bothered to ask these important questions.

ACROPOL-OOPS

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Besides, it’s not like Cruz’s presence in Texas a few hours earlier would have done anything because Ted Cruz isn’t in the business of “doing things.” Ted Cruz is in the business of Ted Cruz.

Did Texas really need the guy hanging around emergency centers scarfing up donuts? Or would Texas have been just as well off if he had remained overseas with Heidi sipping ouzo in some Athenian café? The larger question, I guess is this: is any situation improved by the presence of Ted Cruz?

Ted Cruz didn’t intend to leave his state in the lurch. It just kind of happened like that. Again.

Much of politics is theater. Everybody understands that the appearance of the thing is often more important than the thing itself. Ted Cruz giving a press conference in a windbreaker wasn’t going to help any of the people who lost their lives or their livelihoods. What would have helped was him standing against the cuts to agencies charged with preventing exactly these sorts of tragedies. What would have helped was him supporting climate change policies. What would have helped was him using that big, beautiful brain of his to fight against Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, which will make these events more likely and more deadly. But Ted Cruz chooses instead to do Ted Cruz stuff, because Ted Cruz sucks.

Texas will recover. The lost will be buried. A hundred years from now, Texans will still remember this flood. A hundred years from now, people will talk about the children lost to the waters. They’ll remember their names. They’ll think about the lives that might have been and they’ll wonder at the senselessness of it all. They’ll hold responsible those who ignored the climate crisis but they won’t blame Ted Cruz personally because a hundred years from now, nobody will remember his name.

CAT FIGHT

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So while we now too grieve the dozens—maybe hundreds—of dead, spare a few thoughts for a poor senator with bad luck.

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Michael Ian Black

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