Illusions of Escape
On homes in flux, Ted Cruz's political clownery, and the urgency of survival
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If it hadn't been for the Texas state flag face mask, he might have slipped through security unnoticed. He could have laid low in the first-class lounge until boarding, waited for a quiet time, and slunk into his seat in peace. There was something incredibly theatrical about the videos of Senator Cruz swanning through the Houston airport, gradually becoming aware of the cameras inconveniently placed between him and a five-day tropical vacation at the Ritz Carlton, Cancún.
At this point, millions of Cruz's constituents in Texas had lost power, stuck in their homes without heat for days as the temperatures dropped below freezing. There were valiant efforts to save face: Cruz insisted he was only being a “good dad” to his young daughters who were cold and bored after school was canceled. Cruz used a favorite tactic of bad-behaving men — invoking fatherhood as a proxy for morality — to shield himself from any threat of personal accountability. In a press statement, Cruz initially claimed he had planned to fly back to Texas the following morning after dropping his kids off in Cancún with friends. Then, Heidi Cruz's impressively shady friends leaked text messages revealing that the Cruz clan had been the ones to suggest the sun-soaked trip, inviting others to join them for the full five-day getaway.
The whole ordeal could be called a comedy of errors if it weren't for its deeply depressing implications. Cruz in particular brought to mind a stock character called Pulcinella from the traditional Italian theater practice, Commedia dell’arte, known for its satirical depictions of a topsy-turvy social order that’s recognizable beyond 17th century Italy. Pulcinella's character is one of social fluidity and double meanings: he is both powerful and powerless, cunning and stupid, used by both the Zanni (servants) and Vecchi (ruling class) because of his desire for self-preservation at all costs. Pulcinella's entertainment value is in his paradoxical nature: He goes to great lengths to avoid responsibility, and in doing so, always ends up entrapped by it. The Commedia maestro Antonio Fava, who dedicated much of his career to studying the character of Pulcinella, described him as the ultimate “comic symbol of the urgency of survival.”
In the past 12 months, visions of apocalypse have been ambient. There were the ruby-red skies of California's wildfires before the phantom snowfalls in Texas. Before this, floods of biblical proportions swelled over the Gulf Coast and a torrent of snowstorms with names like Snowmageddon and Snowpocalypse buried the East Coast. These visions are not new, but the rate at which we're experiencing them is speeding up perceptibly. In David Wallace-Wells’ book, “The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming,” he describes this era of cascading crises we are now entering and the “anthology of comforting delusions” that signal a vision ahead that is much, much worse. Among these delusions, Wallace-Wells cites the false belief that climate crises are natural sagas, unfolding remotely in the Arctic or rainforests; that economic growth and the technology it produces will save humans from climate-related devastation; and that wealth can somehow immunize people from catastrophe. All of this is an illusion.
In this crisis-prone future, the urgency of survival impresses itself on all of us. This pandemic is very much a symptom of this new world — and not as singular or separate from issues of climate as one might hope. The blistering pace of deforestation, for example, has infectious disease specialists warning of future pandemics beyond this one. (This John Oliver segment on the rise of infectious diseases since the 1980s is enough to make you shudder.) In Texas last week, we saw the compounding social effects (homelessness, carbon monoxide poisoning, widespread food shortages) of an irregular blizzard amid a global pandemic mired within a political system in which the man in charge believes his own escape could save him. This belief too is an illusion.
In this sense, Ted Cruz is the perfect Pulcinella, patron saint of delusion, embodying the urgency of survival within an archetype of free-market politics, individual exceptionalism, and truth denial. Reports have warned that global warming will create an entire new class of climate migrants, and just this year, we have seen the ways the pandemic has fragmented so many people's connection to their homes. I’m so struck by this story because Cruz and his family experienced just a temporary sliver of the diminishing living conditions that so many migrants have lived through without an easy escape. For a brief moment, Cruz shared in that plight, seeking refuge from an all-encompassing upheaval that felt beyond the limits of his power.
But of course, Cruz's power as both a symbolic figurehead and a legislator of systemic influence is exactly the kind of power that matters. Last week's scene — with its live-action airport drama, incriminating lies, and rehearsed mea culpa - crystallized our own topsy-turvy political order and the utter absurdity of current affairs. Within it was a jewel of irony that was nothing short of Shakespearean.
🌙 Some Bookmarks
*This Longform interview with David Wallace-Wells, whose writing on climate change has been some of the most urgent and visceral I’ve read
*Britney Spears Was Never In Control - I’ll be thinking about this essay for a very long time. About teenage girls and myths of sexual agency.
*My Year of Grief and Cancellation - more thoughts on “call-out culture”
*Sound of Metal is the perfect quarantine film - about a heavy metal drummer who suddenly loses his hearing; in many ways a film about the journey of adjusting to quietude
*This “outdoors from indoors” downloadable coloring book made by my friend Lea on her road trip from California to British Columbia
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