Ted Cruz Calls on Colleagues to 'Shut Up and Do Your Job'

Politically, 2017 hasn’t exactly been a banner year for either party, but especially not for the Republicans. Despite having control over both chambers of Congress and the White House, they’ve managed to get remarkably little done. Instead, there’s been a near-constant back and forth within the party that has kept anything useful from taking place.

Now, Sen. Ted Cruz has had enough of it.

From RedState:

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has about had it with all the GOP infighting between Trump and his colleagues and told his fellow Republicans to can it and get back to work.

According to The Hill, Cruz appeared on the conservative radio show The Mark Davis Show on Wednesday. When asked about the feud between Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker and Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, Cruz verbally slapped his fellow GOP members by comparing them to middle school students without referring to Corker or Flake by name.

“It’s like you’re back in junior high. … We’ve got a job to do, dammit, and so all of this nonsense, I got nothing to say on it. Everyone shut up and do your job, is my view,” Cruz told Davis.

Cruz added that people are “frustrated” with the Republicans penchant for infighting as so much needs to be done.

Some took Cruz’s comments to be an order for the party to line up behind Trump, but I don’t think that’s it at all. Instead, I see it as a call to actually do what each of them was elected to do by the voters of their respective states.

A repeal of Obamacare should have been a slam dunk, but nothing has happened. There’s been little movement on tax cuts, border security, or the expansion of gun rights, and that’s with little congressional Democrats can do to stop anything.

Democrats are having their own issues as a party. The GOP can’t blame an obstructionist opposition party when they’re not even giving the Left anything to oppose, except for the odd comment here or there. That’s it.

What’s more, Cruz isn’t alone in seeing the problem:

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul recently expressed his displeasure at the amount time being wasted on Twitter spats, and not on policy.

“I’m not here to criticize any of them really for what they think is the best way but I think actually that it would be better if we concentrate on policy because I think people at home would like a tax cut,” Paul told Fox and Friends Wednesday morning.

Opposition, even within the party, can be a good thing. But what we’re seeing here? Let’s just say that if this is winning in 2017, I’d hate to see what it would have been like if the GOP lost.