TrusTed?
"Hypocrites. Complete and utter hypocrites. And don't forget Mayor Adler who took a private jet with eight people to Cabo and WHILE IN CABO recorded a video telling Austinites to "stay home if you can...this is not the time to relax." - Senator Ted Cruz
Well... that quote didn't age well. If you were tuned into the conservative movement a decade ago when Ted Cruz first ran for U.S. Senate, yesterday was an interesting day.
Cruz ran at the height of the so-called "tea party wave" as a referendum on hypocritical establishment elites. People were tired of career politicians promising one thing during a campaign and doing another once in office. Cruz ran as an insurgent candidate who embodied everything his opponent, the sitting Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, was not.
"I think it is part of a tidal wave that is sweeping the whole country, which is that voters are tired of career politicians in both parties. Our country is at a crisis point right now ... The American people are looking for new leaders who will step up and stop spending money we don’t have." - Ted Cruz (8/5/2012)
This candidate was different. Cruz understood how much his base was longing for a leader they could believe in and trust to do the right thing because he was one of them... one of us. He knew and understood our concerns. We could trust him to do what he said he would do. We could trust what he said.
In his campaign for president, Cruz even adopted a slogan of TrusTed -- a play on mixing Trusted and Ted calling to mind that very notion of him being a principled conservative we could all trust to be honest with us and do what he said he would do.
That's what makes yesterday so jarring.
Ted Cruz abandoned his constituents in Texas during the most severe winter storm in forty years to vacation in Cancun with his family. While millions of Texans were without power to heat their homes, Cruz was so tone-deaf he saw no issues with leaving to soak up some sun at the beach after telling his fellow Texans to "just stay home." As families were forced to drink boiled water in the dark, he had no problem with the notion of sipping an ice-cold margarita by the pool.
Inevitably, he was busted when a fellow traveler snapped a picture as he and his family boarded a plane at Houston's George Bush International Airport... and the internet exploded. He quickly returned to Texas with his tail between his legs and throughout the day got caught in a web of his own lies (The story is bonkers, you can read it here).
These events can be seen as a crescendo in a slow, four-year fall from grace. When Cruz was booed at the 2016 Republican National Convention for telling conservatives to "vote your conscious," something happened to him subconsciously and he lost a piece of his identity that has never come back.
Prior to that fateful day, Cruz's actions were seemingly based on principle and it truly appeared he believed in what he was doing. Since then, it seems every action he has taken was based on the notion of capturing the elusive Trump voter, in hopes that he may one day fulfill a life-long dream of becoming president -- no matter what it may cost him along the way.
Texas voters will have a tough time forgetting that the man who once called out the hypocrisy of "do as I say not as I do" politicians putting their needs ahead of those they represent, left his people in the dark and in the cold when they needed him most.
For those of us on the right, it is important for us to be consistent in our criticism and praise. We were rightfully upset when Speaker Pelosi was seen at a hair salon without a mask, after criticizing others for doing the same thing. Our indignation was justified when Austin Mayor Steve Adler violated his own stay-at-home order to party in Cabo, after telling his constituents to skip Thanksgiving with their families.
As much as it hurts for conservatives who thought Cruz was different, the flurry of criticism he is facing right now is completely justified. It is a startling reminder to always put your faith in ideas and not people.
