Ted Cruz's latest Cancun spin shows the rot of GOP victimization runs deep

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Molly Jong-Fast🏡
@MollyJongFast
.⁦@ThePlumLineGS⁩ writes so well about the Fox News ecosystem and how they shape messaging

Opinion | Ted Cruz’s latest Cancún spin shows the rot of GOP victimization runs deep
Republicans are re-centering Trump as the chief victim in U.S. political life.
washingtonpost.com
10:31 AM · Feb 23, 2021

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/23/ted-cruz-hannity-cancun-spin/

Mark it down. Republicans have hit on a new way to spin away their own screw-ups and scandals: by claiming the media focus on their political travails is driven by the press’s search for a new Republican victim, now that former president Donald Trump has largely exited public life.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) has just road-tested this new line in response to continuing questions about his trip to Cancún during the Texas power shortage, which left millions freezing without power.

This may seem silly and desperate, but it’s worth pausing over because it illustrates a deeper intellectual habit that post-Trump Republicans are increasingly falling back upon, one that is likely to get more widespread.

We’re talking here about the relentless instinct to portray Trump as a victim, not just as misdirection, but also as a catchall justification. And this reaches far beyond Cruz’s Cancún excursion. It’s the through line to something of far greater consequence: the GOP escalation of voter suppression and counter-majoritarian tactics in states across the country.

On Monday night, Cruz went on Sean Hannity’s show — a laboratory where pro-Trump propaganda gets manufactured for the GOP base’s consumption in its most unalloyed and poisonous form — and ridiculed the media’s obsession with the Cancún trip.

“The media is suffering from Trump withdrawal, where they’ve attacked Trump every day for four years, they don’t know what to do,” Cruz said. “So they obsess over my taking my girls to the beach.”

*snip*

[czarjak]

1. Want to bet, Ted?

[gratuitous]

2. Sure, Ted

It was all about taking your girls to the beach. That was whole sum and substance of why you were a national embarrassment last week.

[lunatica]

3. Ha ha! He's on the defensive and failing!

No one likes him is why. He has nothing to offer nor rewards or punishments to mete out like Trump did. And he’s one of those unfortunate people who people loathe.

I really dislike Republicans, but they don’t usually make my skin crawl like he does.

[NCjack]

4. Shows cryin' Ted as what he is: a cry baby.

[Blue Owl]

5. K&R

[3catwoman3]

6. How many excuses has he offered so far?

He’s digging so deep he will be getting core samples of the Earth pretty soon.

[TheBlackAdder]

7. Well, only stupid people knowingly set themselves up to be perpetual victims. Are you stupid, Ted?