Pretending to care
By 
It took sneaking off to a tropical resort during a state-wide disaster, getting caught, failing to respond to questions about where he was, slinking back, blaming his daughters who are 10 and 12 years old for the trip, lying about how long he planned to be away in the first place, being busted by people in a group chat with the Cruzes, catching several well-deserved feet of shit while members of the opposing party actually did things to help people in Texas, for Cruz to take part in a charity photo-op which could well turn out to have been staged.
And I bet he was pouting under that mask.
We should enjoy the awkwardness of Republican charity photo-ops while we can. Soon such events – even ones designed to make up for a multi-day, multi-level blunder – will be quaint relics of a time when they could be bothered to spend a few minutes pretending to care about people who aren’t multi-millionaires.
Fucking off to an expensive resort in a country they normally revile when the going gets tough will become the norm for Republicans because their capacity to pretend to give a shit is going the way of their capacity to respond to a disaster with anything except lies designed to Own the Libs.
A combination of laziness, reflex rejection of anything associated with Democrats – such as helping the unfortunate – and being some of the shittiest people on the planet would be enough to guarantee Republicans will only get worse, but it is the complete embrace of white supremacy that is give their awfulness that extra je ne sais quoi.
Republican leaders believe they should never be subjected to the inconveniences experienced by common folk and they believe the myth of white toughness. That means they believe the common folk who vote Republican don’t mind – nay – they enjoy real suffering if it supports the true purpose of the movement: ensuring the absolute comfort of the movement’s leaders. That’s the origin of those statements that people should be willing to live one bout of illness away from financial ruin, go several days without utilities or just drop dead already.
That and Republican leaders believe that if their voters didn’t want to suffer the dumb fucks would have enough money to avoid suffering.
