Senator mistakes Western Australia for Washington State
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) mixed up Western Australia with Washington State in a rant against Covid-19 rules that prohibited dancing, blasting the Democrats for restrictions that had actually been imposed on a different continent.
After the Western Australian government announced this week that dancing was “strictly not permitted” for New Year’s Eve parties in the state – part of its latest efforts to stop the spread of Covid-19 following an outbreak – Cruz lashed out in a since-deleted tweet.
“Blue-state Dems are power-drunk authoritarian kill-joys,” the senator wrote. “Washington State: NO DANCING ALLOWED!!! Any rational & free citizen: P*** off.”
Social media users were quick to point out that Cruz had misinterpreted the statement from ‘WA Government’ as having been issued by Washington State, which shares the same abbreviation as the state of Western Australia.
Since @tedcruz deleted this, I’ll post as a reminder to all of us to DO YOUR RESEARCH before posting misinformation. WA means “Western Australia” not Washington state. pic.twitter.com/jnZ2On7p9k
— Adam Kinzinger (@AdamKinzinger) December 30, 2021
The “WA government” here is Western Australia. Not everything revolves around the US all the time. pic.twitter.com/9kY3ovZ9Y5
— Grace Panetta (@grace_panetta) December 30, 2021
“Hey Ted, WA is Western Australia. But cool tweet,” responded Congressman Eric Swalwell (D-CA), while Georgia State University law professor Anthony Michael Kreis mocked, “I, like Ted Cruz, am upset I cannot dance in Western Australia because I wanted to club in Perth.”
Others defended Cruz, however, and acknowledged that it was an easy mistake to make.
“What should scare you is the fact it sounds believable that a state like Washington would ban dancing on New Year’s, and if they did, there’d be journalists defending it,” argued conservative Tennessee congressional candidate Robby Starbuck.
