The Re-emergence of Political Shaming?
Note: Yesterday, I dubbed him Cancun Ted, but social media’s name, Fled Cruz, is better and seems to be sticking, so what the hell, I’m going to use that, too.
Politico is reporting this morning that the quaint tradition of shaming misbehaving politicians seems to be returning. That’s pretty much amazing coming out of the last 5 years of Donald Trump’s malfeasance and immorality out in plain sight. When caught at something awful (kids in cages, bribing porn stars, screwing porn stars, extorting foreign leaders, inciting insurrection, etc, etc.) Trump would just say, “Hell, yeah, I did it, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Up yours.” He did it repeatedly, numbing many Americans’ sensitivities, and pleasing the hell out of millions of his supporters who cheered him on.
Well, with the Felon in Chief back at Mar a Lago beating the crap out of the little white ball all day, things are changing, if only a bit. You’re already up to speed with Fled Cruz’s stupidity in taking the family to Cancun in a trip conjured up by his wife. Characteristically, he lied that it was his daughters and their friends who wanted to go, then lied again to cover that up, lied again to cover up that lie, and then finally came clean. Texans, normally very tolerant of Republican malfeasance and gross negligence, weren’t that tolerant this time, and I would posit that when his supporters are the ones suffering and not just the little people who don’t count 99% of the time, they get narrow minded.
Cruz is getting crucified on every social media platform. The memes are just writing themselves, and if his arrogance wasn’t so perpetually galling, this whole episode would be funny. This time, though, when people are freezing in the dark, bodies are now being discovered, and millions still don’t have power, water, or both, he’s actually paying a price for acting like a dumbass.
This is what happens when you elect people who don’t believe in government to manage your government. Three of our four most visible politicians in Texas have made fools out of themselves this week. Abbott blamed the nonexistent Green New Deal for gas fired power plants shutting down. Rick Perry crawled out from under his rock to stupidly assert that Texans would rather freeze in the dark rather than be subject to big, bad, federal regulation. And then there’s Fled Cruz, who was doing Jack Shit sitting around his house while other politicians were out working the phones assisting with food and water distribution and checking on senior citizens. The only one of these four, John Cornyn, while being virtually invisible, at least didn’t show is ass to the entire world.
We’ve talked about it before. What we’re seeing here is the logical result of failed Libertarian ideology. Libertarianism doesn’t work, has never worked, and never will work. Period. Yet we continue to elect politicians who spout Libertarian nonsense and make policy around it. That’s how you get public policy that establishes voluntary compliance with clean air and clean water regulations. That’s how you get the PUC to establish voluntary weatherproofing and maintenance requirements for power generators. Voluntary standards for industrial safety and health are just as stupid as the SCOTUS actually saying that money equals speech and that money doesn’t corrupt when it destroyed limits on political spending in its idiotic Citizens United ruling in 2010.
Perhaps we’re finally turning the corner here on response to malfeasance. I’m not all rainbows and unicorns here, but we had moved so far away from those quaint times when politicians like Gary Hart and Al Franken had their careers completely destroyed for really obscure and/or overblown misbehavior that a return to shaming that works is a breath of fresh air. As we’ve said before, Fled Cruz, doesn’t care if you live or die. He doesn’t give a shit about doing his job as a US Senator. He doesn’t even believe in a federal government. He didn’t give one single thought to how it looked for him to jet off to Cancun during a power crisis where people are actually dying. The ONLY reason he came back to Houston was that social media blew up when pictures of him on a United flight exploded on millions of feeds on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. When it hit mainstream media, even his tin ear could hear it. That’s when he scampered back to Houston lying all the way.
Maybe we do have a light at the end of the tunnel, but we’ve got a long way to go.
