For nearly two weeks just before the holiday season kicked into full gear, MAGA Republicans like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) slammed President Joe Biden and VP Kamala Harris for what they portrayed as an act of national treachery born out of bitterness over their election loss in November.
The act? The selling of materials that were purchased for the construction of more border wall along the U.S-Mexico border, a border whose relative porousness under the Biden administration was probably the deciding factor in Donald Trump‘s election victory.
[NOTE: No election issue was hit harder by MAGA than illegal immigration, and only perhaps inflation competed with migration as a narrative where Republicans successfully created a binary choice for voters, effectively casting Trump as the solution for rising numbers of migrants and for rising prices at grocery stores.]
Finding out that unused parts of the border wall were being auctioned off before Trump’s return to the White House, Cruz especially castigated Biden, calling the sale “the most offensive” thing he had seen in politics.
.@tedcruz: “On the question of selling off the border wall — this is one of the most offensive things I’ve ever seen.”pic.twitter.com/ygEDpPRLdg
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) December 17, 2024
Yet the sale of unused border wall materials was required by congressional mandate — not ordered by White House in a pique — and that mandate was part of a bill introduced by a Republican Congressman.
Not only did Biden probably not know about the sale — tens of thousands of units of spare government equipment is constantly for sale online, recouping expenditure costs for taxpayers — but Cruz and his fellow attackers knew why the sale was being executed and what made it necessary. And they knew the reason wasn’t Biden’s anger.
Still Cruz and company ignored that part and attacked anyway — because the story, even if it wasn’t factual, supported a MAGA narrative of Biden running a lax border and deliberately trying to hobble the incoming Trump’s plans.
Fair rhetorical tactics? Some would say no. Effective? Yes — border wall searches were high during the contretemps and the story moved around conservative media without much question about its veracity. (See Fox News interview with Cruz above.)
Democrats who are disappointed in their side’s unwillingness to use similar tactics — or at the very least to strike when a news event makes their opponents legitimately vulnerable — are now fuming over the silence of Democratic lawmakers after stinging details emerged from the ethics investigation of former Congressman Matt Gaetz.
The general feeling, as expressed in a post below, is that if Dems can’t hit a target as large as that offered by Gaetz, how can they hope to hit anything? (The nagging implication, and concern, is that the Left will continue bringing the rhetorical equivalent of knives to a gunfight, as the saying goes.)
Consider how Cruz might react to similar revelations about the behavior of a Democrat — the Texas Senator would actively seek to paint the entire Democratic party with the tainted brush of one member’s scandal.
How to account then for the pulled punches by Dems, even after Congress released details from its investigation into Gaetz, the Florida lightning rod who was Trump’s first choice for Attorney General — but whose nomination was scuttled after it became clear his history was viewed as disqualifying even by numerous Republicans.
Per a feed of Congressional accounts on X only six Dem accounts posted there about Gaetz today. (Kaine, Casten, Cohen, Garamendi, Sherman, and the House Judiciary Dems account.)
— Eric Columbus (@ericcolumbus.bsky.social) December 23, 2024 at 5:57 PM
Above is a post lamenting the lack of pugilism among Congressional Democrats who might have come out throwing roundhouses at Gaetz and his enablers after the report — and thereby also hitting Trump with glancing blows — but who in large part have remained silent.
Where is the Democrats’ Cruz? One to take the toxic fluid that leaks from Gaetz and rub it on other Republicans? There isn’t one. No Democrat has stepped up to be Cruz’s equal — no one is seeking to aggressively malign MAGA Republicans around the Gaetz news, even as Trump’s original AG nominee’s flameout burns hotter in light of the published allegations.
Do Democrats — as is their habit — think that the Gaetz report speaks for itself, and that they therefore don’t have to pile on to say how bad it all is?
Did Gaetz do the things he is alleged to have done? A Republican-controlled Congress thinks so, and yet still there are few Democrats amplifying those findings — or trying hard to present a case that Gaetz illustrates a larger set of MAGA problems and contradictions.
Rep. Tim Kaine of Virginia went so far as to call Gaetz a “low life” and link him to Trump, but few other Congressional Dems joined in.
Donald Trump nominated this low life for Attorney General with full knowledge of this investigation. For Trump, the behavior was not disqualifying but perfectly acceptable! https://t.co/Js0ANcXkY7
— Tim Kaine (@timkaine) December 23, 2024
All Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL) managed to say upon release of the Gaetz details was the broad lament that “this is not a happy day.” (see below)
The release of the Gaetz Report is important news for all who care about integrity, accountability, and transparency in the U.S. House of Representatives. pic.twitter.com/AJhMLMHJYe
— Rep. Sean Casten (@RepCasten) December 23, 2024
Meanwhile Cruz portrayed the sale of border wall materials — which wasn’t even a Biden initiative — as close to an act of treason by the administration. MAGA adherents like Cruz have since piled on Biden for pardons, the commutations of federal death row inmates and more, portraying Dems as soft on crime and out of touch and even anti-American.