#FlyingTed

With record low temperatures, multiple power outages and going under a mandated boiling order, Texas lawmakers were being needed more than ever. In the midst of all that was going on, Senator Ted Cruz decided to take a trip... to Cancun. Cruz abandoned the people he said he would represent for warmer climates instead of staying and helping his fellow Texans through one of their most unprecedented moments. Claire Mynatt, a senior English major from Texas, was more than disappointed in her senator.

“Obviously, it was a cowardly move. Your constituents are freezing and having to boil snow to flush their toilets and you decide to try and quietly escape to Mexico? It’s ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. He literally just left his constituents behind to freeze, and then he tried to come back from Mexico wearing a Texas flag mask like it was going to fix everything. Then to make it better, what did he do when he got back? He just did media appearances- no local support like other people were doing or fighting for quicker federal aid.” Her frustration was not only in the fact that Cruz left, but that other government officials served citizens on the front lines without question.

“I saw a lot of people defend him saying “well what do you want him to do, thaw out people’s pipes by himself?” No, that’s not what I’m expecting him to do at all, but if you look at what other people did in comparison Cruz looks like a moron. Beto, who lost to Cruz in the senate race, made hundreds of thousands of calls to senior centers or people around Texas to make sure they knew where to get drinking water or where they could go to get warm. Beto did more to support the community than our actual senator did. Then, on top of that, you have AOC (a woman that Cruz has vilified constantly since her election and is a House member from New York City) raising over 4 million dollars in aid for Texas and traveled to Texas to actually assist in aid. She went to food shelters and actively worked in the communities that Cruz was so intent on getting away from. AOC owed Texas nothing because of this and the fact that she’s a congresswoman for New York, but she still did more than Cruz for the people of Texas.” Mynatt held nothing back and neither did his colleagues.

Texas representative Michael McCaul criticized Cruz’s decision to leave the state “When a crisis hits my state, I'm there. I'm not going to go on some vacation," McCaul, the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday, according to “Texas Republican criticizes Cruz for Cancun trip: 'When a crisis hits my state, I'm there'” by Zack Budryk from The Hill. Cruz is not the only official being criticized for their actions during the ice storm. State governor Greg Abbott is also under critique.

“There's plenty blame to go around when something this catastrophic happens. But by any objective measure, Abbott's actions (and lack of action) should leave him with far more blame than, say, Cruz who, as a sitting Senator has virtually no formal role to play in the crisis. (As I noted last week, Cruz still should have understood that his job is to comfort struggling constituents, whether or not he can do anything specific about the problem,)” according to “Did Ted Cruz's Cancun trip distract from the biggest political failure in Texas?” by Chris Cillizza from CNN. Cruz and Abbott have taken more political missteps in one week of crisis than probably in the whole of their political careers. An article from The New York Times gives some insight into why Cruz fled his home state.

“Text messages sent from Ms. Cruz to friends and Houston neighbors on Wednesday revealed a hastily planned trip. Their house was “FREEZING,” as Ms. Cruz put it — and she proposed a getaway until Sunday. Ms. Cruz invited others to join them at the Ritz-Carlton in Cancún, where they had stayed “many times,” noting the room price this week ($309 per night) and its good security. The text messages were provided to The New York Times and confirmed by a second person on the thread, who declined to be identified because of the private nature of the texts,” according to “Ted Cruz’s Cancún Trip: Family Texts Detail His Political Blunder” by Shane Goldmacher and Nicholas Fandos. As critique from print news, colleagues and citizens began to spread, social media inevitably picked up on what was happening.

“Mr. Cruz’s critics quickly circulated hashtags mocking his trip: #FlyinTed, a play on former President Donald J. Trump’s derisive nickname for Mr. Cruz during the 2016 primary race, and #FledCruz, among them. Some Democratic groups sought to fund-raise off the episode, and the state Democratic Party renewed its calls for Mr. Cruz’s resignation,” according to Goldmacher and Fandos from The New York Times. Cruz left his state quickly and was just as quickly reprimanded for it.

The bottom line is this: Senator Ted Cruz should not have left Texas when Texas needed him most. Other representatives around the country and in the state, got out into their communities and served. Representative ​Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez flew from New York to raise money to help people with who she has no legitimate responsibility to help. Cruz blatantly ignored his responsibilities as an elected official. He used the power and wealth he had immersed in office to leave the people who gave him his job. He was reckless with his people and more importantly his political position. The United States was watching Texas last week and the people should learn from them as well. Citizens should be holding their government officials to a higher standard. In contrast, government officials need to remember that they were put in office to serve not just benefit from their position. Cruz showed his true colors this past week and everyone was able to see them. Only time will tell if Cruz will be serving in office much longer.