The ‘Semi-Hotness Of Ted Cruz’s New Beard’ Is Apparently The Subject Of Conversation

Should we laugh, cry or both?

I’m honestly not sure.

Someone at Slate wrote an article titled, “I’m So Sorry to Report that Ted Cruz’s New Beard Looks Great.”

Thoughts on the unwelcome semi-hotness of Ted Cruz’s new beard: https://t.co/0YQXUTB0ci

— Slate (@Slate) December 7, 2018

For starters, yes. Cruz now has a beard. It’s the same beard Chelsea Handler made a stupid joke about.

Just a reminder that Ted Cruz with facial hair is still Ted Cruz. Now there’s just a place to catch the food that falls out of his mouth. pic.twitter.com/QGfEKJAAbc

— Chelsea Handler (@chelseahandler) December 6, 2018

For the record, I agree that beards can often make a dude significantly hotter. However, I can’t figure out why Slate felt the need to publish an entire analysis on Cruz’s face. The entire article is basically a backhanded compliment.

The Texas Republican first appeared in public with traces of facial hair just after Thanksgiving. Back then, the beard was just a shadowy, patchy mess that crept down his throat while wholly avoiding his chin. It looked a bit more professional in better lighting, but it reeked of desperation, too feeble and thin to do anything but serve as a physical manifestation of Cruz’s personality.

That all changed this week, when Cruz showed up in the Senate with a filled-out salt-and-pepper beard, giving his face a defined jawline and its first-ever hints of ruggedness and affability. The bloated, downy visage of a college debate team showoff is gone. A marginally less insufferable mug has arrived.

They’re so bummed Cruz looks better with a beard.

Cruz’s new beard serves as a proof point for a few aesthetic and economic theories. First: Beards are contouring for men. Men who complain that women who wear a ton of makeup or don sunglasses in their Tinder profile photos are scamming men into thinking they’re hotter than they are had better never grow facial hair, because beards are capable of facial trickery no contouring palette could hope to accomplish. (Likewise, Republicans like Sen. Lindsey Graham who mock women like Rep. Nancy Pelosi for getting plastic surgery should be just as ruthless with men who cover up weak chins with beards.) Cruz’s new face also proves that the cultural mystique around beards and masculinity runs deep. He was sick of being regarded as a namby-pamby in a state with the country’s biggest hard-on for machismo, but he looked like an absolute idiot every time he tried to hold a gun. With his beard, he looks ever so slightly less like someone whose idea of athleisure is pleated khakis.

“He looked like an absolute idiot every time he tried to hold a gun.” That’s coming from someone who probably never held a gun like, ever.

Anyway, Twitter is NOT amused.

I'm calling the police

— Jordan Meehan 🏳️‍🌈 (@JordanMeehan) December 7, 2018

go directly to jail

— amy brown (@arb) December 7, 2018

Can we keep Tumblr and close Slate

— jake (@jacobisok) December 7, 2018

that’s not what hot looks like

— Natalie Shure (@nataliesurely) December 8, 2018

pic.twitter.com/FIhPgWYLy8

— Roger's Internet Name (@iamtherog) December 7, 2018

What is wrong with you people? pic.twitter.com/lvsiH7q11Y

— This is the Queer Place🏳️‍🌈 (@NurseBrak) December 7, 2018

Libs have quite the ridiculous dilemma on their hands.

Wanna know who should grow a beard next? Lindsey Graham. Or Trump. Or BOTH. IMAGINE IT.