Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) tried to own the libs again on Friday but likely only made armchair psychologists wonder if he secretly craves humiliation.
While in Midland, Texas, the smarmy politician tweeted a photo of himself where he jokingly referenced the time in February 2021 when he left his fellow Texans suffering record-cold temperatures and power outages to stay in sunny and warm Cancun, Mexico.
Cruz was criticized for his actions, and the resulting humiliation led him to fly back to Texas from Mexico almost immediately.
Since then, Cruz has tried to live down the obvious political error in weird ways: By making jokes about it.
That was the case on Friday when Cruz found a neon Cancun sign and thought it would be funny to pose next to it.
The photo was just Cruz’s latest attempt to get over the Cancun scandal by making jokes about it.
But while self-deprecating humor can benefit a politician, Cruz’s repeated attempt to make jokes about his willingness to ditch his constituents in their time of need ― and the actual jokes ― demonstrate that he still doesn’t get why the Cancun trip was terrible for him optics-wise.
For instance, in November 2021, he responded to a tweet about California Gov. Gavin Newsom vacationing in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, by tweeting back that “Cancun is much nicer than Cabo.”
The Cancun gaffe made Cruz the butt of jokes, such as when he was called out for hypocrisy after criticizing Joe Biden for taking a tropical vacation.
Twitter users tried again to explain to Cruz why his occasional Cancun references don’t have the effect he wants.
Colin Allread, a Democrat running to replace Cruz in the Senate, wasn’t impressed by the tweet.
Some people had more than 200 reasons why Cruz shouldn’t joke about Cancun ― the number of Texans who died during that record cold over two years ago.
But one person did express solidarity with Cruz ― even though it was obviously sarcastic.