Agreed 100%. It’s a worldview that’s unpleasant to look at, and that is ignored at our peril.
I find it helps to remember the original meaning of “politically correct” (brought to my by an Australian Broadcasting Corp news podcast I can’t find right now): the notion that the “truth” as understood by the public needs to align with the political interests of the party first and foremost, with discernible reality as a secondary consideration.
By way of example: if you’re politically correct in Russia in 1936, you believe that the famine in the Ukraine is capitalist propaganda, and anyone who believes otherwise is wrong and needs to go to a gulag.
If you’re politically correct in Germany in 1936, you believe that peace and prosperity can only be achieved by removing the lesser races from the country. Anyone who believes otherwise is wrong and needs to go to a camp.
I expect that among a portion of Cruz supporters, he is a noble patriot, and anyone who believes otherwise is wrong and needs… [watch this space].
[edit: clarified which ABC news, better adjectives]
Dumb question here, although I think I know the answer: Would it be cheaper to have prepared for this once in a lifetime (or 100 years?) event, or is it cheaper to fix things after the event.
I used to work n large CNC machine installations. As the seller, we always pushed an annual service contract, with scheduled maintenance plans by our factory techs. I know we made good money one these, but I also know machines with this service had more uptime and total life.
But there were always a few companies that did very little maintenance. Run the machine into the ground, then call for fixes. Or scrap the machine and buy another.
I don’t have exact numbers, but even if we take out the lost economic value (and profound human suffering) caused by the outages, it’s likely to be less expensive to prepare in advance. The fact is, anything they would’ve done to prepare for this event would’ve made their grid overall more secure and resilient, so better able to deal with any number of potential catastrophic events, or expansion opportunities.
But private utilities don’t get government emergency funds to conduct routine maintenance and upgrades, so in those ugly terms, it was probably cheaper for them to run it into the ground (to use your CNC example).
Tell that to all the Cruz supporters who keep appearing in this topic and have to moderated into oblivion. Republicans are literally supporting him right now in the midst of this. The idea that any GOP voter will remember this or care years from now when Cruz is up for re-election is far fetched, in my humble opinion. Again, insurrection is the bar now.
Except it is (historically) neither once in a lifetime, nor once in a century, it’s more like once a decade, will predictably happen, and given current climate instability, will tend to happen more often. When you consciously refuse to prepare for a once a decade disaster of this proportion, you are utterly incompetent. The price of proper winterizing will come out as a small fraction of damage done. Even if 9 years out of 10 it is completely unnecessary, the 10th will make it so they would be way way ahead. I do not expect them to learn from this, but the math certainly works.
The person who deserves that moniker is David Dewhurst, the sitting Lt. Governor who was stomped by Cruz in the primaries despite being heavily favored at the start.
What should amaze you is the fact that such an odious slimeball as Cruz got elected to anything.
This alone speaks volumes about the power of the POT (formerly GOP) in Texas, as well as the success of gerrymandering & voter supression. Cruz ran as a Teeper, so there’s that, as well.
The fact that he came within 2 percentage points of ousting a sitting POT Senator in Texas is remarkable; there is talk that he is mulling a run for Governor.
I wouldn’t count him out.
Or anyone espousing their nonsense. This cult was a forerunner of HWSNBN/QAnon.
I hope someone comes up with suitable mocking nicknames for those; ‘Idiocracy’ would tend to run into copyright issues (as well as besmirch a prophetic movie).
Looks like he is doing it to himself quite nicely. So is Abbott.
