I think we set records for low temps statewide last week, negative double digits in Texas, even the coast and the Border. I had rolling blackouts and janky plumbing holding on by a thread. But no one I know was included in the death toll so there’s that. None of this even includes mention of the 100-vehicle pile-up that killed so many as the storm was barely ramping up. Now that I sit here still assessing plumbing damage as last week’s winter storm continues to melt into the groundwater, as I continue to boil water, and as I prepare for my first trip to the grocery store not sure of what if anything will be on the shelves, I am forced to call a time-out and mellow out.
I will distract myself with coffee, a doojay, or Youtube, the #1 reliable source for distraction. This routine has been going on for days now and those days have been filled with, first the news and then, continuing updates on Ted Cruz’s escape from the winter storm that crippled the state he represents in the Senate last week. First I got to watch him being escorted off of his return flight with a security detail. TMZ was all abuzz with video of his fellow passengers cursing him out. Then, the photos of his family on the beach were leaked. Now I get to watch his rich kids and overfed (though surprisingly svelte) wife returning for the same walk of shame that their chinless patriarch made days before.
I did not vote for Ted Cruz though I would contribute to a GoFundMe to support the purchase of chin surgery for the man. I recall a distinct feeling of relief when I left the state at the start of the last decade; Cruz wasn’t my problem anymore. I’ve assumed the time I spent away had mellowed my cynicism on his performance as a public servant. I’ve been too busy dealing with vicissitudes to cut a side-eye at another unremarkable politician. And I can’t really say that his latest debacle has done much to thaw my detachment. I mean, what did people expect him to do?
He’s not a populist. He’s definitely not a statesman. He wasn’t even brave enough to take a stand on one side of the fence during the Trump years. He’s a tweeter. A blowhard. He serves his own and that doesn’t include me. I don’t look to politicians anymore. They are bad actors in the literal and figurative sense. These are ugly, unremarkable individuals that have profoundly failed the people that they were elected to…I don’t know, to try for, to give a shit about, to at least show up and represent. No. These are people that never fail to vote in an annual pay raise for themselves while they take regular vacation breaks and waste time with galling stunts and theatrics while the big mushroom cloud that is the unemployment situation in pandemic-America starts to look more and more like a skull and crossbones. These are not our representatives. These are not our public servants. These are jobbers. Professional wrestlers. Vaudevillians with the world as their stage.
I reject these people. They were elected for me, not by me. Therefore, I am never disappointed when they fail me, which they do day after day after long-dying day. They obtain their position acting in ways that I would never accept from my mother, my children, or from a friend. And once they are ensconced, they wile away the days, wasting time and money, my time and money, play-acting.like the people they see on TV. These are people that bow down to movie characters and call it racial justice. These are people that win Emmys for speeches they give on television in which they lie about their response to a pandemic that has crippled the people that are least able to withstand nonsense. These are people that invest in medical, financial, industrial interests and use their legislative powers to protect and nurture those interests for their own benefit no matter the cost, once again, to those who can withstand the least amount of market/ culture volatility.
Ted Cruz does not disappoint me. He is a recognizable marker that I use to reliably measure the level of bullshit active in the world at any given moment. It’s better that he flies off during times of crisis. He would only be in the way and I have things to do and I cannot afford the delay.