Ted Cruz is still getting heat from his escape to Cancun while his home state suffers through a climate disaster, and now a party store is giving some of his constitutes a way to take out some of their frustrations in a safe, healthy manner. Now that Cruz has returned stateside and been parodied on SNL, the hubbub about him escaping freezing cold and power outages by flying to Mexico has subsided a bit. But a party store in Dallas has started selling a piñata that looks remarkably like Cruz as he returned from Cancun wearing a grey polo and a Texan flag mask.
The mockup is pretty faithful, including a piñata 5 o’clock shadow, a passport and a depressing black carryon suitcase. As one Twitter user described it, this is a “therapy piñata.”
I think everyone in Texas needs a Ted Cruz therapy piñata at this point. And, probably one of @GregAbbott_TX too! pic.twitter.com/uETMDkhjO8
— donate to ur local abortion fund (@ellepolloloca) February 23, 2021
As NBC News detailed, the party store has made a habit of making meme-inspired ps, with a Bernie Sanders at Joe Biden’s inauguration piñata and others in the past. And since the story in Texas required them to close for six days, it seemed more than fitting that Cruz in his Texas-themed mask would get the piñata treatment:
“That’s the reason that I’ve gotten creative and made some piñatas, so that people can come and support,” De La Fuente told NBC News. “I’m always looking for something positive out of negative things so that we can all get a laugh out of it.”
Cruz’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The 3 1/2 foot piñata sells for $100 and though they are only sold at the store, it has already led to around $2,000 in sales as of Tuesday.
That’s a bit pricy, though custom work doesn’t come cheap. And despite it not being really a great idea to throw parties during a pandemic, it certainly got a lot of people talking online.
My Ted Cruz pinata is still on
back order.— American Reformer
(@Rz08495929) February 21, 2021
It’s rare that a piñata is more attractive than its source material https://t.co/1ThVTk0gIY
— gianmarco (@GianmarcoSoresi) February 23, 2021
the party store I live near has made a ted cruz piñata pic.twitter.com/bFa8rchXAL
— Anita Adkison
Wear a Mask (@Auntienena13) February 23, 2021
This kind of piñata therapy is much safer than, say, inciting a MAGA coup at the US Capitol just because something didn’t quite go your way. We’ll have to see if Cruz can troll has way out of this one on Twitter, but it’s safe to say plenty of Texans are looking forward to buying — and destroying — a likeness of him as long as they’ll get some candy out of it.
(Via NBC News)