Dear Karen the Carin’ Barbarian
A fan letter to the leaker of the Cruz Cancun trip group texts.
Dear Karen the Carin’ Barbarian,
Clear examples of Chaotic Good are rare. I write to thank you for you sending the Times your group texts of Heidi Cruz planning her family’s ill-considered flight from the freeze.
I assume that you are a wealthy White straight married mother. If this is incorrect or insulting, please know that it is based on my assumptions about Ted and Heidi Cruz, not about you. The Times recieved group text messages that seem to be from their neighbors in River Oaks. Though Houston is the most diverse city in the country, this neighborhood is almost entirely White. The property values range from $1-$20M. I also imagine that this group text is entirely or predominately women - if Heidi had close male friends, we would have heard about it when then-candidate Trump insulted her looks. I assume that you are a mother because I don’t know how else people would have the Cruzes in their social circle except through the obligations of parenthood.
Undoubtedly, you have always known Ted to be an oleaginous tool. I assume this because it appears that no one, including me, who has spent time with Ted Cruz has nice things to report. His college roommate Craig Mazin came to notoriety by sharing stories about Young Cruz. While at Harvard Law, Cruz did not allow anyone in his study group who did not go to Harvard, Yale, or Princeton -the “Minor Ivies” were not good enough. His colleagues - ambitious, flawed people themselves - have put it well. Former Senator Al Franken said “I like Ted Cruz more than most of my other colleagues like Ted Cruz. And I hate Ted Cruz.” Senator Lindsay Graham, like Cruz a populist Southern Republican, said “If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was held in the Senate, no one would convict you.”
Heidi knew what she was getting into. I doubt that this is the first objectionable message on this thread, but most people simply ignore it or drop out of the thread.
What was it about this lie that triggered your face-turn? Not the insurrection. Not reading Green Eggs and Ham on the Senate floor. Not the obsequiousness to the man who suggested Cruz’s dad helped kill Kennedy. Not the meeting with the defense counsel during the impeachment. Not the hard pivot from talking about how his dad made it to America from Cuba with $100 sewed into his underwear to supporting Trump’s family separation policy.
I think it was that, while you were freezing in your house, trying to convince your children through chattering teeth that things would be okay, you saw him blame his daughters for wanting to go on a vacation. You knew that it simply was not the case, that Heidi was talking about the price and the security, and maybe even that Houston Police Department was pressured into helping. Noblesse oblige is the only thing that keeps the guillotines away. This was going too far.
There is fallout from outing people in your social circle.
I am from a small town in East Texas. Hours after the beloved public health officer there died of COVID after spending months advocating masks and social distancing, locals held a wetlands-preservation charity banquet. They held it in the same venue where the vaccines were being administered; the health department had to cancel people’s appointments to set up for the auction. The attendees gleefully posted pictures of themselves and their kids on Facebook. No masking, no social distancing. Seeing this, I took screenshots of those photos and posted them on my own wall, noting such behavior was insulting to the late doctor, was the exact type of activity that he advised against, and was the sort of thing that spread the disease that killed him. I had been tut-tutting their flouting of the basic decency, their anti-mask drivel, and faux-libertarian nonsense from afar, but I was angry. He was a dear friend.
The rabble went ballistic. They threatened my family. They threatened me. They claimed they would be going for my job, filing grievances, and suing for slander. A local bar run by one of the chief know-nothings is literally selling shirts that say ‘F#ck Off Jim Bob, Sincerely, Corsicana.’ I’m obviously not worried about any of that happening; they are lazy and wrong.
But you, madam, know that you are dealing with powerful people with comfortable lives. When the ice thaws and the water flows, they wanted the neighborhood to return to a peaceful bubble kept just interesting enough by Junior League drama and passive-aggressive one-upsmanship based on the achievements of children. But you surveyed the scene and decided to drop the needle on Stepford 2: The Streets.
You violated not just the sanctity of a group text, but River Oaks Omertà. Pretending that everyone’s vast wealth is deserved is essential for neighborhoods like yours to exist. It is how the Enron guys keep getting invited to weddings.
This summer I doubt you were marching in the wave of demonstrations prompted by the death of George Floyd because I think the Cruzes would have cut you out if you had. But I bet that you, like many other comfortable middle-aged White women, thought about things this summer in a way you had not before. Maybe you bought White Fragility or read James Baldwin for the first time. You probably also were introduced to the concept of a ‘Karen.’ Maybe you looked back and realized that you had exhibited Karenish behavior in the past and thought that this call-coming-from-inside-the-house was penance. Maybe you have been unfairly called a Karen and you wanted to prove yourself.
This is out of bounds. Lady Featherington is allowed to spill the tea on the ups and downs of debutante season, but if her newsletter suddenly started revealing who had syphilis or was gay, Bridgerton would fall.
It is much harder for a bless-your-heart mom than a warship captain to scream “Damn the torpedoes!” But you have taken up the Battle Hymn of the Daniel Tiger Mother: Never let convention and convenience stop you from opposing what is clearly wrong.
You must know that your anonymity will be short-lived. If nothing else, Cruz will just order someone to subpoena the text records under some pretense. The press would have eventually uncovered from flight and hotel bookings that Cruz was lying about their timeline, but because of you that is not the work of historians or biographers. They had to respond in real-time, giving the lie again to their process claims.
This is like, upon hearing Marie Antoinette saying ‘Let them eat cake,’ a lady-in-waiting stood up from the bridge table, threw open a window at Versailles, looked to the starving peasants at the gates and yelled ‘Alo! Zis beetch zes to eat l’cake!”
There is no coming back from this.
It is hard to consider anyone who lives in a neighborhood with a country club on both ends to be a hero. But choosing discomfort of any kind based on principle is noble.
Thank you,
Your biggest fan,
Jim Bob Kingman
Excellent. I'm here for this journey, Jim Bob.