Ted Cruz plans a vacation during a crisis.
Gallant finds ways to be helpful.
Ted Cruz books a flight to a Mexican resort town while his state is suffering power outages, water shortages, food scarcity, and freezing temperatures.
Gallant — oof! — definitely doesn’t do that.
Ted Cruz actually gets on the airplane, not thinking twice about the fact that it’s, at the very least, bad optics.
Gallant knows that would be political suicide.
Ted Cruz makes up an excuse about how he, like any good dad, is just chaperoning his family on a quick trip to Cancun in the middle of a global pandemic and which was planned at the last minute for the very relatable reason that school was canceled for the rest of the week.
Gallant takes, at most, a last-minute road trip to the family’s cabin on a whim.
Ted Cruz requests an upgrade when his family is still flying economy.
Gallant flies with his family when the pretense is he’s accompanying his family somewhere — which, again, is unlikely at best to happen but should it happen it wouldn’t. Does that make sense?
Ted Cruz brings a giant rolling suitcase for an overnight trip.
Gallant brings sensibly-sized luggage for the length of the trip he’s taking, but it’s been tucked in the back of the guest room closet since March 2020.
Ted Cruz books a return flight the morning he’s called out for abandoning his state, despite having previously booked his initial return for a couple of days later and despite that very discoverable fact not meshing with his previously released account of events.
Gallant sticks to his story.
Ted Cruz doesn’t take a COVID-19 test and waits 72 hours before reentering the United States.
Gallant complies with basic travel restrictions for the health and safety of his fellow citizens.
Ted Cruz blames his daughters for a major blunder of his own doing.
Gallant, again, still hasn’t considered doing the unthinkably stupid thing to begin with.
Ted Cruz names his dog ‘Snowflake’ as, we assume, some kind of conservative attempt at a joke(?).Gallant gives his dog a name he can confidently call out at a dog park without embarassment.
Ted Cruz liked a porn video from his Twitter account on 9/11.
Gallant only views adult content in incognito mode.
Ted Cruz quotes Shakespeare to appear smart.
Gallant isn’t desperate enough for acceptance to need to appear smart.
Ted Cruz lets another presidential candidate call his wife ugly.
Gallant’s husband, Keith, is objectively attractive — but if anyone were to insult him, Gallant would at the very least condemn those statements.
Ted Cruz promotes election fraud conspiracy theories when it’s politically expedient, even after the attempted murder of his colleagues.
Gallant… I mean, do we even have to say at this point?
Ted Cruz spends his free time tweeting snide responses to Seth Rogen.
Gallant understands that the so-called “media elite” only have the power we allow them.
Ted Cruz assumes public office but fails his constituency at every available opportunity.
Gallant loses the election but still disseminates important public information on social media, volunteers locally, and makes phone calls to help seniors access resources during a weather emergency, and — actually, wait, that’s Beto O’Rourke.
Adam Campbell-Schmitt is a writer and editor living in the New Jersey suburbs with his wife, son, and dog (in no particular order).