Ted Cruz was crying on Twitter. He dumped a long post on Twitter decrying the “bloodbath” of the recent election, which I’ll spare you, because he really had nothing to say, other than to describe the Republican collapse. Yeah, we noticed. We don’t need a hack to explain it to us.
He just had to admit a glorious fact.
Texas is blue. That is a hard sentence to utter. But Texas, today at least, is blue. As we sit here today, I am the only statewide elected Republican who remains in Texas.
And if he had been on the ballot for re-election, he would have been one of the casualties. Maybe next time.
He quotes an exit poll that summarizes the Republican failure, but don’t be surprised — he won’t admit to being one of the contributors to the disaster.
Take the state of Kansas, for example, a state that has not elected a Democrat senator since 1932. It just did. Here’s what exit polling showed were the top issues in Kansas.
Number one, cost of living, energy, and groceries. That was listed as number one by 30.6 percent of voters.
Corruption. Number two, 18.5%.
The cost of the Iran war, 10.1%.
The candidates are terrible, 7.9%.
The Canada trade war, 7.6%.
The GOP didn’t do enough to support Trump, 6.6%.
Republicans didn’t pass the Save America Act, 5.6%.
Trump’s focus on monuments, 5.5%, and data centers and AI, 3.8%.
Exactly. The cost of living, corruption, and the Iran war are the top 3. The fourth point, the candidates are terrible, is something Ted Cruz has no ability to alleviate. He called the Iran War exactly the right decision
when it started. He is totally wrapped up in the most corrupt administration in American history, and endorsed Ken Paxton, the terribly corrupt candidate for Senate. And he’s done nothing to reduce the cost of living.
But OK, I consider the Kansan’s complaints to be valid and something every politician should consider. Does he propose anything substantive to address any of those issues? No, he does not. He instead falls back on the failed strategy Republicans have been following for years: attack the Democrats and lie about what the Democrats are, hypothetically, going to do.
We can be certain that the Democrats in Austin and in Washington will overshoot. In Texas, they will try to raise taxes dramatically. They may even try to adopt a state income tax, or even a California wealth tax. They will try to shut down the energy industry, destroying jobs across our state. They will embrace the radical transgender agenda. They will persecute those they perceive to be enemies, especially Elon Musk.
And in Washington, they will attack Trump every single day, constantly. Impeachment hearings, subpoenas, his family, cabinet members, business leaders, open persecution, and nonstop retaliation. Make no mistake. Nationally, the radicals are in charge. The communists and the Islamists who have taken over the Democrat Party have now taken over the United States Congress. They will be unleashed.
He knows nothing about their tax plans; any increase in taxes should be accompanied by an increase in government services, and keep in mind that the current administration has bloated government spending with personal perks for the rich.
There is no radical transgender agenda
. I would hope that the only thing on that agenda is tolerance and respect for equality.
There are no communists and Islamists
in the Democratic party.
His concerns are unfounded, but familiar — these are same nonsensical culture war issues the Republicans have relied on. They’re dead boring.
When it comes down to specifics, he mentions only two things, neither of which are going to beneficial.
And for young people, we need to be the party of the future. We need to champion policies that expand their future. Our two single biggest legislative accomplishments of the past two years, Trump Accounts and the school choice tax credit, which will unleash tens of billions of dollars in new scholarships for kids, are generationally powerful. I was proud to author both of those transformational policies, and yet too few candidates all across the country ran on that record.
Trump Accounts — seriously, do you want to attach your brand to Trump even more — are a bit of a boondoggle. They’re like other investment accounts, but with more strings, and the experts are advising that you shouldn’t use them, with one exception.
Adam Michel, director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian public policy research firm, thinks there are better ways to set money aside for children, such as in a 529 or standard IRA account.
“Generally speaking, parents should not put their own money into a Trump Account,” he told CBS News. “The primary use case for the accounts is to receive free money from sources like the government or private donations.”
For example, Michael and Susan Dell on Tuesday said they would donate a total of $6.25 billion — or $250 apiece — to millions of kids in Trump Accounts.
It’s basically a one-time opportunity to grab a little bit of money from a ridiculously wealthy couple.
As for the school choice tax credit…that’s only a benefit to people who are wealthy enough to send their kids to a private school. All of these schemes to benefit private schools hurt public education. It’s only going to help the investor class
, which Cruz apparently considers the foundation of the future electorate.
Too few voters were even aware of what we’d accomplished for their kids and their future. But we need to build. We need to expand to continue creating a new investor class for hundreds of millions of Americans, help everyone, every American, become an owner, to have real skin in the game, to create new generations of capitalists ready to reject socialism.
We are already the most capitalist country on the planet. We don’t need more capitalists, we need more people willing to put limits on the excesses of the investor class
. But you go ahead, Ted, keep appealing to the Musks and Andreesens and Thiels for help. They’re the next gang going up against the wall.
Teddy is missing one important point: Women won, White male privilege lost.
There is a widespread focus on “issues” in these polls, with less attention to politicians and their character. Trump wanted people to vote as though he was on the ballot? The convicted felon? Serial sexual abuser? Millions paid to settle fraud claims? World Champion liar? The “issue” might be affordability, but when one of the people running for office is a MAGA cult member I don’t care about gas prices.
Sure, Ted.
If California undid its ‘original sin’ and matched Texas on taxing property, it would raise more revenue than the billionaire tax, economists say
I’m not sure what an “Islamist” is, but there are registered Democrats who are also Marxists or what have you. Voting is a decision you make to change which outcomes are more likely, ideology is what you wish you had, so there’s no real conflict there.
dhasenan, the internet is your friend:
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/muslims-vs-islamists
I think I might quite like to live in the radically trans-inclusive, Marxist utopia version of Texas that exists entirely in Ted Cruz’s head.
“We need to expand to continue creating a new investor class for hundreds of millions of Americans, help everyone, every American, become an owner, to have real skin in the game”
A beautiful example of what he has precisely backwards. If you don’t own stuff, don’t have investments, it’s because your entire skin is in the game. You just have less control over the outcome and the consequences are potentially much, much worse. Also, it’s not a god damn game when the score decides whether you get to eat, or have shelter, or medicine, or what have you this week!
November 2030 is when I will get to once again vote against Ted Cruz. Already on my calendar. Hopefully fourth time is the charm.
Assume arguendo that “communists and Islamists” are, in fact, bad — which is very much parallel to bigotry based on any other changeable characteristic, like choice of religion or being a Dallas Cowboys fan.†
Can darling Ted honestly look at the opposite perspective for the GOP? Can he honestly say there are no neo-Nazis and Klanspersons in the GOP? Excuse me, Mr Cruz, I have a call waiting for you on line 3 from a Mr Duke… and line 4 is a Mr Mr Shea…
Our political parties don’t in fact stand for anything except factional loyalty. Over time, whether that is “liberal” or “convervative” shifts. OK, over a long time; but then, I know what a “Dixiecrat” is.
† OK, that last one really is bad, or at least a sign of questionable judgment.
In this metaphor, working class Americans aren’t allowed to have skin, and thus cannot put it in the game. Giving them skin to put in the game would be Communism or something.
Cruz: “As we sit here today, I am the only statewide elected Republican who remains in Texas.”
…except when he’s in Cancun. Maybe he should move there permanently.
Reasons 6 and 7 – if only the repugs had supported trumphs push to make it harder for the public to vote these Kansassians wouldn’t have had to vote for the very people who openly oppose trumph and want them to vote with less difficulty! I wonder where else I have heard such illogic espoused?
As an alien (gotta love that term) I am still pessimistic after this blue-wave result because, with a hostile house, the pres can now focus on foreign policy. So yay for ‘America’!
Ted, you unforgivable fuckwit, the word is PROSECUTE, not persecute.
Now the Dems just have to not fuck it up in the next two years, but Talarico is calling himself a “border security Democrat” who is willing to work with Trump and while there are still a couple months to go apparently Schumer is still likely to be the senate leader. Dems gonna Dem, not realizing that despite a handful of good candidates, this blue tsunami wasn’t brought on by their brilliant campaigning but because the Republicans are historically shitty.
You expect the Republicans to start being better? Heh. Must be nice to be so, um, hopeful.
(They will never get any credit from you, win or lose, right? Ah well, whiners gonna whine)