Just read Time Magazine’s Most Influential People article for Donald Trump

Just read Time Magazine’s Most Influential People article for Donald Trump. The junior senator from Texas, Ted Cruz, is the author. In it, he refers to the man who attacked his family — and the administration that has undermined so much of the decency and dignity of public life — as “great fun to watch.”

I don’t think that comment represents Texas.

Because it’s not been great fun to watch President Trump refuse to condemn the racist and dangerous behavior of Klansmen and white nationalists marching with torches in the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia. Nor was it a laughing matter when he insulted women, attacked a Mexican American judge based on his ethnicity, threatened the rights of LGBTQ Americans, and called the press the enemy of the people.

It hasn’t been fun for millions of Americans who find that seeing a doctor or fulfilling a prescription is increasingly out of reach. Protections for those with pre-existing conditions are threatened. Medicaid and Medicare are targeted for drastic cuts. And our state, which leads the nation in the rate of uninsured, sees a million more lose coverage.

Not fun for working Texans to see corporations and the wealthiest receive another massive tax cut, one that comes at the expense of their families and $2 trillion to the debt.

I don’t think the 200,000 Texas Dreamers contributing to our communities today who are now threatened with deportation and face the real possibility of being sent to a country they don’t know, where they don’t speak the language, are enjoying this presidency.

And not one teacher that I’ve met with in my travels to more than 240 counties has told me that they’re entertained by watching as public education is undermined by Betsy DeVos who wants to turn our tax dollars into vouchers for private schools.

The farmers in Dawson and Tulia don’t see a trade war with China or the threatened withdrawal from NAFTA as a good idea. They know it’s not great fun but rather a direct threat to family farms and ranches and the entire economy of Texas.

As he stoops to bow to President Trump in the pages of Time, Ted Cruz reminds us that we can do much better. That with the right leadership in Texas we can lead this country past the divisiveness, the meanness, the paranoia and the smallness. It’s our drive to focus on the big, aspirational goals of Texas and this country — the ability for everyone to live to their full potential in the jobs they hold, the education they receive, the healthcare that they can count on, the voting rights they can exercise — that will distinguish us.

Thanks,

Beto