There are some things you just don’t do.
You don’t show how you care by fleeing to a warm tropical tourist destination while the (voters) people you represent are standing in freezing temperatures, queued up to get water. You don’t take your daughters to Cancun, no matter how long ago it was planned, when your state is FUBAR, without power, and people are literally freezing to death.
You just don’t. Sen. Ted Cruz should know better. But he’s really one of the elites, and they just seem to never learn.

I know Cruz has his defenders, like my friend Erick Erickson.
People are crying over nothing. They’d prefer it if Ted Cruz stay home and emote or tweet or make public performance efforts to show he cares. Misery loves company.
From a purely utilitarian point of view, of course, there’s nothing Cruz could do in his job to make life easier for Texans. His presence in the state is not required. But his example, however, is.
Yes, yes, yes, it looked bad. It was bad optics. Cruz should have stayed behind and fed the homeless in front of cameras and said nasty things about the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. Not doing anything substantive but in front of the cameras at home instead of removing his family was clearly the right call.
As Marie Antoinette would agree, if she had hung on to her head, yes, optics is everything when people are suffering and you are eating cake…in Cancun. Jetting to Cancun might be a great idea among the Princeton, Harvard Law, and Goldman Sachs crowd. But that’s not the crowd a U.S. Senator needs to please.
Cruz now admits it was “obviously a mistake” for him to head to a vacation spot during a crisis.
“Wanting to be a good dad, I flew down with them last night and am flying back this afternoon,” Cruz wrote.
Listen, I get that. The fact that Cruz is a good dad and prioritizes the needs of his family over optics is not in itself a bad thing, from a certain point of view. But it certainly complicates life, and calls into question the persona that our politicians put forth publicly, versus their own private thoughts. The fact that Cruz would make such a dumb mistake, when so many others have made the same errors within the past year, makes me think that he’s not simply tone-deaf, but he’s not really listening to the music.
As a personal example, I have a job where my presence does not affect operational people—who are essential workers. Yet I have been continually reminded that my presence in a crisis, and my not taking certain days off when others are compelled to be there, is required. It’s simply bad optics for me to not be there, even if, as Cruz, I can only offer verbal encouragement. If optics is good management in business, its inverse is bad government, a hundredfold.
Look at the backlash when the New York Times published a screed documenting the hoi polloi, who were themselves screaming about ads in the Times and showpiece articles about the rich fleeing New York for The Hamptons in a COVID getaway.
See what happened when Denver Mayor Michael Hancock flew his family to Mississippi for Thanksgiving, just an hour after warning residents to stay home.


Look at Nancy Pelosi’s “blow-out” scandal, opening a hair salon just for her, when nobody else could visit a hairdresser.
California is about to boot Gov. Gavin Newsom over dinner at The French Laundry. Do you see the parallel between Newsom’s dumb optics and Cruz?
Sure, it’s just one dinner. And the governor did apologize, calling it a “bad mistake.” But the party at a restaurant where dinner for two costs more than many people earn in a week reinforced a fundamental schism between those who value government as a force for good and those who resent it as the bastion of an out-of-touch elite oblivious to people’s needs. [Emphasis mine]
People don’t like to be reminded of their own poverty, their own problems, their own struggle to survive a crisis, cold, miserable, locked down, without income, etc. They really don’t like to be reminded of this by elite politicos who attend expensive dinners, jet off to Cancun with their daughters, and just barely miss the business class upgrade list. Oh, the horror of waiting on standby!


This faux pas by Cruz won’t be forgotten. No, I’m afraid it will be trotted out again and again by his detractors. Voters may or may not choose to forgive him. In a close election, like in 2024 (when Cruz is up for re-election), this kind of thing can come back to hurt Cruz.
Thinking like an elite, and acting like one, will get people like Ted Cruz in trouble. As smart as he, and Newsom, and Pelosi, and the rest of our elite politicos are, you’d think they’d know better by now.
Biden’s immigration plan…is something, versus nothing
On a different topic, I am still undecided about President Biden’s immigration plan. But I am not dismissing it out of hand. In fact, the more I’m reading, the more I think it’s wise to do something, and something constructive, versus nothing at all.
I was always in favor of President Trump’s border wall, but his motives for building it were always suspect to me. We don’t need “fortress America.” America thrives and is founded on immigration. After all, even the Mayflower passengers were immigrants. “e Pluribus Unum” does not mean “America First” or “America for Americans.” It means the ideal of America is making one of many. Any immigration plan that doesn’t address the immigrant ideal is operating on a faulty foundation, and Trump’s plan was as xenophobic and isolationist as any in our history.
President Biden’s plan addresses immigration in a much more American way than Trump’s did. A path to citizenship is what the Gang of Eight, led by Sens. Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio, proposed. The difference is that Biden’s plan has an eight year path, and the GOP plan was for 13 years.
Biden’s plan also includes aspects of Graham’s and Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin’s DREAM Act, which gives legal immigrant status to illegals who came to the U.S. as children. Biden wants to change federal language to use the term “noncitizen” instead of “alien” regardless of the term used in federal law. So what? I see how the word “alien” is loaded, but changing it to “noncitizen” won’t unload it.
There’s a boost to LGBT families, who would get some kind of special treatment under Biden’s plan. Pandering. Exempting most immediate family members of legal immigrants from the per-country caps on green cards is smart. I’ve seen a worker here on an educational visa sit for years waiting for a green card, despite the fact that her entire family has legal status. She nearly got deported. It’s stupid.
On the whole, I think doing something is better than doing nothing. At least Biden’s proposal has a better feel to it than Trump’s, though Trump’s actions on the border wall and enforcement were correct—just in the wrong spirit. I’m sure the usual people will react in the usual outrage, though.
I have a piece I’m working on about the clean, green, wonderful benefits of the highest energy density fuel in the world. I hope to get that published here this weekend. See if you can guess what I’m talking about in the comments.
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So you’re working on a piece about nuclear energy. I’ve often wondered why they don’t just fire a rocket at the sun with the waste. It would burn up when it got to close and solve the problem, no?
I've wasted too much time this morning reading too many articles on a man i don't particularly care for. The good news is it helps me try and get a better grip on life and what matters. Internalizing events, mine or others and then writing about it seems cathartic as i suspect you find as well Steve.
Rather than looking at Ted's great adventure as a singular screw up, it forced me to ask myself; when did we get so messed up as a country? More succinctly; when did doing the right thing become passe?
It didn't start with trump, but his never-ending lies became acceptable. Couched as "hyperbole," the cadre of ball-washers constantly defended what he said and acted as if it was normal behavior. And hence, it has become the norm.
EE defended Ted with gusto this morning; yet over the last several months Eric has been adamant there was no stolen election. I have less resentment over his leaving Texas than i do over his propping up the big lie. It's all just part of the pattern of no accountability that has become so in vogue in our country. I guess once he skated over that, everything else was just easier.
It will always come back to this ever so simple concept: Do The Right Thing! How freaking hard is that?