A politician flees to a warm resort, leaving behind constituents in crisis. Sound familiar?
“The Simpsons,” the long-running cartoon Nostradamus, envisioned the same scenario nearly 30 years before Sen. Ted Cruz took his controversial trip this week to Cancun during a weather crisis in Texas, fans pointed out. (Watch the clip below.)
The lawmaker earned widespread scorn for hightailing it out of his state as fellow Texans faced a lethal freeze that left many without power and clean water amid the coronavirus pandemic.
And, like Cruz, the fictional Mayor Quimby of “The Simpsons” tried to weasel his way out of it.
In the 1993 episode, “Marge in Chains” the circumstances are a little different. (The soothsaying business can be a little tricky in the animated world.) Springfield has been overtaken by a virus, but no record cold.
The outbreak is enough for Mayor Quimby to skip town for the Bahamas, even though he lamely attempts to fool residents into believing he’s still working at his office.
In a televised address, Quimby declares he is staying home (as Cruz told Texans to do two days before he left on his trip).
“People of Springfield, because of the epidemic, I have canceled my vacation to the Bahamas,” he says. “I shall not leave the city ...” He is then interrupted by a musician in a bathing suit.
“Hey you, get that steel drum out of the, uh, mayor’s office!”
After his return amid furious criticism, Cruz called his getaway a “mistake.”
But “The Simpsons” apparently saw it coming decades ago, so perhaps it was just destiny. Cruz himself is a huge fan of the show and does decent impressions of Mr. Burns and Ned Flanders.
″‘The Simpsons’ predicted Ted Cruz because of course they did,” one Twitter user wrote.
Fox’s classic cartoon has gotten credit for foretelling Donald Trump’s presidency, the coronavirus pandemic, the Capitol riot and even Vice President Kamala Harris’ inauguration outfit, ― so why not an out-of-touch politician’s escape to paradise?