Did you know that Truthout is a nonprofit and independently funded by readers like you? If you value what we do, please support our work with a donation.
On Wednesday, as Texans braced themselves for another harsh winter storm, Sen. Ted Cruz (R- Texas) joked about his decision to vacation in Cancún last year during the deadly winter freeze that left millions of people in his home state without power.
In February 2021, as Texas’s energy grid faltered and left millions of residents without power during a brutal winter storm, Cruz left Texas to vacation in Cancún, Mexico, a move that was widely condemned for being callous and out-of-touch. The storm resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people.
Cruz later admitted that his decision to go on the family trip was “obviously a mistake” — but he also maintained that he was the victim, claiming that the media was simply looking for someone to villainize following Donald Trump’s departure from the White House a month prior.
“The media is suffering from acute Trump withdrawal, where for four years every day, they could foam at the mouth and be obsessed with [former President] Donald Trump, and now that he has receded from their day-to-day storyline, they don’t know what to do with themselves,” Cruz said on a conservative radio show last year.
This week, Cruz made light of his ill-advised trip to Mexico in a tweet about inflation. While noting higher gas, food, and lumber prices, Cruz wrote in a tweet on Wednesday, “And tickets to Cancun are up 32%!”
Cruz’s comments come as the state braces for another serious winter storm — and while tens of thousands of residents are, once again, without power.
On Thursday, a winter storm that hit much of the U.S. left 70,000 Texans without power. Notably, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott promised residents late last year that the power grid would be reliable “even during the harshest of winter storms.”
In response to Cruz’s tweet on Wednesday, State Rep. Gene Wu (D) said the lawmaker must have sensed that “this storm is going to be serious,” if he was tweeting about flight costs to Cancún. Wu added that it was callous of Cruz to “reminisce about that time [he] abandoned the state when we were going through a catastrophic natural disaster that took the lives of 700 Texans.”
Important Message: Please Read
For 25 years, Truthout has survived by publishing impactful investigative journalism and analysis; distributing full editions 365 days a year; and building a community of readers who support us with small, hard-earned donations.
Eighty percent of our $3 million yearly budget comes from small donors alone. Of those, 8,000 readers support us with monthly donations. Back in 2018, when Facebook decided to suppress the circulation of posts made by organizations, thereby cutting readers off from seeing many articles shared by the news organizations they had intentionally decided to follow, Truthout’s total traffic declined by 40 percent, as nearly all of our traffic from that platform disappeared.
Now, Google has recently rolled out its AI search bar, providing AI summaries instead of directing readers to our site. Google Search is our single largest source of traffic; it’s the route by which nearly one third of our readers find us. Much like in 2018, a shocking 40 percent of our Google traffic has disappeared overnight.
It will not be easy for Truthout to shoulder this blow. Nor will it be easy for our peers and collaborators — news sites that depend on traffic and aren’t bankrolled by large corporations.
If you can support Truthout with a donation today, you can help us resist the AI onslaught. Please give today.