I am sincerely sorry for all that residents of Texas have suffered through a winter blast for which they were not at all prepared, and the domino effect of electricity blackouts, water line breaks, and the impossibility of keeping grocery store shelves stocked, all in the midst of a pandemic that is anything but over. People have died, millions more have been inconvenienced or even traumatized. And though it is warming up today, it is not over. A lot of complicated and expensive decisions will have to be made over the next few months.
What is of more specific concern to me is the comfort with which Governor Abbott told implausible lies about the cause of the collapse of the power grid and his shamelessly shifting misrepresentations. Texas having its own power grid and their love of rejecting federal regulation aside, what we have seen in this crisis is a perfect example of the danger of dishonesty in politics and our complicity in it by having almost no visceral reaction to it.
Caught in a crisis caused by lack of investment in the maintenance of their power grid, Abbott immediately tried to blame the 31 year old freshman congress member from New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as if her proposed Green New Deal was directly responsible for the power shortages in Texas. Obvious to absolutely anyone is the fact that Green New Deal has not been implemented and probably not seriously considered in Texas by any elected official. He tried to walk his lies back by saying that solar panels and wind generators don’t work in freezing weather. But the same solar panels on the space station have been generating electricity for decades without fail and the wind generators in Antarctica work fine.
The final insult to his whole propaganda mishap is that solar and wind power generation was performing above expectations in Texas. It was the natural gas and coal generation that was shut down by the freezing temperatures. So, yes, absolutely, shame on Governor Abbott for lying like a cheap rug when millions of people were looking for real answers from their government. But, honestly, shame on Texas voters for virtually shrugging off the series of lies as if they did not deserve better. Abbott is not stupid, he just doesn’t have any character. But what about voters who don’t demand depth of character from elected officials?
The media has focused on Senator Ted Cruz’s embarrassing Cancun vacation during the crisis. I suppose that his lies and attempts to cast blame on his own children makes for better TV but, like Abbott, Cruz is not stupid, he is just dishonest. And, he recently won re-election when it was unavoidably obvious that he does not appear to be able to feel either hypocrisy or shame.
It may be that Americans became exhausted with the daily drumbeat of Donald Trump’s lies, but, we can’t ignore the fact that he came terribly close to winning re-election, and failing in that, he tried to instigate a violent overthrow of our democracy and the majority of Republican senators still voted to acquit him. Apparently, there is absolutely no expectation of honesty, morality, patriotism, and no consequences for breaking the primary laws that govern our nation. This level of moral indifference is unsustainable. It will destroy our nation more directly than our disappointing class of elected officials.
I urge you and everyone who inhabits this nation, to demand honesty from our elected officials and when they are found to have lied, that should be the end of their career in politics if not, in fact, the end of their ability to serve out the remainder of their term.
Johnson and Nixon lied about our war in southeast Asia. Reagan lied about taxes, welfare recipients, Iranian hostages, arming the Nicaraguan Contras, giving arms to Iran, Star Wars, Beirut, well, admit it, EVERYTHING!, paving the way for the biggest liar in history, Donald Trump. Over 50 years, we have gotten used to it but our chief executive officer should be someone to be emulated and an example of moral character for our kids. We must not accept presidents, senators, governors or city council members whose first instinct is to lie and when they are caught, to lie again, and again, until they find a lie people will accept. This is not America. This is not who we are or at least, it is not who we should be.