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Twitter reacted largely with glee to Sen. Ted Cruz’s Monday night pornographic tweet incident, but several Slate staffers also put on our deer-stalker hats and got to work.
Unwilling to allow this mystery to be entirely lost to the fog of time, we created an exhaustive list of scenarios for this “staffing issue.”
Here are the many theories:
1. The Careless Senator: Cruz accidentally liked some porn while watching it.
2. The Careless Staffer: A staffer, either mixed up toggling between official accounts and personal accounts, or just directly on Cruz’s official account because why not, perused some porn and accidentally hit the like button.
3. The Curious Staffer: A staffer, while searching for “statistics proving the benefits of supply side economics,” accidentally stumbled upon the account “LesbianSexSuply.” Like any good researcher, the staffer kept digging.
4. The Vengeful Staffer: A staffer, very knowingly on Cruz’s official account, searched for porn and intentionally liked the video. Plausible given the senator’s popularity.
5. The Lonely Senator: Someone sent the porn clip to Cruz as a DM. The senator got so excited to have a friend that he immediately liked it.
6. The Forward-Looking Senator: Cruz was just straight-up bookmarking porn for later.
7. The Educational Senator: Cruz, like Kurt Eichenwald, just meant to illustrate to his wife that the world is a deranged and perverse place. His hand slipped, and he accidentally hit the like button.
8. The Precautionary Senator: Cruz has developed a particular distaste for Mike Pence and wants to make sure the vice president never dines alone with him.
9. The Discerning Senator: Cruz wanted the world to appreciate this particular pornographic video.
10. The Shadow Tweeter: Steve Bannon masterminded the like as part of his 14th-dimensional chess media distraction campaign waged from outside the White House.
We wish future detectives best of luck in sorting through the clues.
