The Texas Republican Party tried to use memes to support the re-election bid of Sen. Ted Cruz, who is locked in a tighter-than-expected race with Rep. Beto O’Rourke.
It didn’t go well.
The battle began on Wednesday when the Texas GOP used its Twitter account to share a picture of Cruz’s Democratic rival from his days in a 1990s post-hardcore band as well as a mug shot from a DUI arrest from 20 years ago.
Soon enough, Cruz critics started circulating old pictures of the senator in return ― and one image, in particular, was shared around more than the rest: a photo of Cruz as a mime.
According to the Daily Dot, the high school photo showed Cruz as a mime version of Adam in a play based on the Book of Genesis. Writer Parker Molloy offered a cutout version with a transparent background for anyone who wanted to work him into a meme scene:
It took off from there: