#senate2018

Abstract: This article discusses the 2018 Texas Senate race. Incumbent Republican Ted Cruz is being challenged by democrat Beto O’Rourke (D- El Paso), and Sema Hernandez. Sema Hernandez is introduced, we then discuss why Ted Cruz and Beto O’Rourke are not the candidates that Texas needs and why Sema Hernandez is. Sema Hernandez is a 32 year old married mother of four living in Pasadena, Texas. She is a baseball coach, and as of August 19th, 2017, she is challenging Ted Cruz for his senate seat next year. If you follow politics, there is no shortage of reasons to dislike Lyin’ Ted. In 2013, he shut down the federal government to give him the political clout necessary to run for president in 2016, only to lose to Donald Trump. This had the potential to be absolutely devastating to everyday ordinary Americans who rely on services from the federal government for their survival. Not because they’re lazy, or they’re moochers, but because they’re struggling to make it ends meet like all other lower and middle income Americans are. This act demonstrated that Cruz only cares about his political future and power, not at all about ordinary Americans. The Houston Chronicle went so far as to renounce their support for Mr. Cruz due to the lack of dignity that he brings to his office. Texas deserves better. America deserves better. Shortly, I’ll discuss exactly why it is that someone like Sema is exactly the type of person Texas needs. Sema is not the only democrat running for senate in 2018. Her main opponent’s name is Beto O’Rourke. At first, Beto had me excited. Beto doesn’t take money from corporations or super PACs. On the surface, Beto is seemingly a Bernie Sanders-style progressive. However when you begin to dig deeper into his policy positions, it is quickly revealed that Beto is a politically astute fraud masquerading as a champion of the working class. I asked Beto why he has not yet cosponsored H.R. 676. H.R. 676 would expand health care as a human right to all Americans. His answer sounds good on the surface: why not simply keep medicare as it is, but expand it to everyone under the age of 65? H.R. 676 doesn’t allow for profit hospitals to be reimbursed by medicare. However, this answer reveals exactly why Beto is a pseudo-progressive. side note: You can read my full conversation with Beto here,here, here, and here.

The progressive position on healthcare is that healthcare is a human right. Ensuring healthcare as a human right means eliminating the profit motive from healthcare. The goal of H.R. 676 is to expand Medicare to the entire population not just by mandating that the entire population shall receive Medicare, but eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in America’s healthcare system. The biggest source of waste, fraud, and abuse in America’s healthcare system is for-profit healthcare and especially for-profit insurance. This leaves us with a bit of a dilemma. We’re either to believe that Beto is ignorant and that he needs to be convinced that he is wrong, or that he is deceitful and trying to trick progressives into voting for him. There is a simple principle of logic known as Occam’s razor; the proposition which makes the fewest number of assumptions is the most likely to be true. In order for us to believe that Beto is ignorant, it requires us to believe that he has not informed himself on the ins and outs of h.r. 676 (however he clearly stated that he has read and reviewed h.r. 676 in the conversation that I had with him). Due to Occam’s razor we can clearly deduce that Beto is a politically astute pseudo-progressive, cut from the same fabric as Ted Cruz. Of course Beto is preferable to Ted Cruz. The sorts of things that Beto would vote for in congress wouldn’t be nearly as bad for ordinary Americans. But Beto is still an unacceptable choice because he is deceptive towards his constituents. He pretends to be on the side of the working class when he clearly isn’t. H.R. 676 is simply one of many examples clearly demonstrating this fact. Sema Hernandez is on the right side of every major issue. She will not hesitate to cosponsor H.R. 676, or H.R. 608 (ending regime change in foreign countries). She is against SB4 here in Texas; making the minimum wage a living wage and tying it to inflation; getting money out of politics, and so much more. Read more about Sema’s political platform here.

The fact that I agree with Sema on most major issues is not why I will vote for her. I will vote for Sema because of her humanity. When I attended the launch of Sema’s senate candidacy, I heard this testimonial of Sema’s character from the founder of the eyes of a dreamer, Jessica Rangel:

Even though Sema and no one and her family would not be affected by SB4, she was still there to fight for us like she would be.