Ted Cruz Worried Student Debt Relief Will Encourage Baristas To Vote

Is that even allowed?

Democrats have come up with a whole new way to rig elections, and it's not by recruiting Italy's best hackers to employ satellites and also possibly the Vatican to change all of the votes in the voting machines — rather, it is by doing things that actually help people and improve their lives.

This worries Ted Cruz, who said as much on a recent episode of his podcast, Verdict, in which he posited that student debt relief could lead to "slacker baristas" going out and voting — or possibly even voting from home. Oh, the horror.

“Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) says there’s a “real risk” Biden forgiving some student loan debt will help Democrats in the 2022 midterms: “If you are that slacker barista who wasted seven years in college … if you can get off the bong for a minute … it could drive up turnout.””

— The Recount (@The Recount) 1661548338 

"There is a real risk! If you are that slacker barista who wasted seven years in college studying completely useless things, now has loans, and can't get a job, Joe Biden just gave you 20 grand. Like, holy cow! 20 grand!" Cruz posited, somehow unaware that being a barista is, in fact, a job.

"Like maybe you weren't gonna vote in November," he continued, "and suddenly you just got 20 grand, and if you can get off the bong for a minute and head down to the voting station, or just send in your mail-in ballot that the Democrats have helpfully sent you, it could drive up turnout, particularly among young people."

See, the big problem with this is that Ted Cruz's imaginary unemployed slacker barista who majored in underwater basket weaving is not the only sort of person drowning in student debt. It's 15 percent of the country. It's 49,425,000 living, breathing American voters. It's the parents of those voters, the spouses of those voters, the friends and relatives and coworkers of those voters.

Even if that were the case, does Ted Cruz think baristas should be barred from voting? Who does Ted Cruz think is good enough to vote? Does he want to institute an income threshold? Limit the vote to property-owning white males?

This has been the big Republican fear for decades. They worked very hard to cultivate an image of Americans as a people who prefer misery over relief as a matter of pride and "rugged individualism," and while a lot of people have fallen for it — including, and perhaps especially, Democrats — no one actually prefers that. Not deep down. If Democrats offer nothing for fear they'll be seen as socialists and Republicans offer a smug sense of superiority, that puts Republicans in a great position to win elections. But if all they're offering is the opportunity to feel like you're better than someone else and Democrats are offering "not waking up in a cold sweat every night worrying about your student loans" or whatever else ... that feeling isn't going to be worth a whole lot. Because when it comes down to it, people may talk a good game, but they don't actually want their lives to be harder. Everyone already thinks they've got it hard enough as it is.

That's why Kansas voted to keep abortion legal. Sure, part of it was empathy, but a bigger part of it was that actually being forced to be pregnant against one's will would be a terrible time, and people want that out whether they'll say it out loud or not.

Ted Cruz should be worried. Republicans should be worried. Because people do like nice things, they do like their lives being less hard, and the more Democrats figure out that this will get people to the voting booths, the more emboldened they will be to do things like student debt forgiveness and the more elections Republicans will lose.

 Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons .

Wonkette is independent and fully funded by readers like you. Click below to tip us!