U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz has found himself in a surprisingly tight race for re-election against Congressman Beto O’Rourke of El Paso. Though daily headlines continually predict a national “blue wave” come November, Texas has been a reliable red seawall for decades. A Democratic candidate has not won a statewide office since 1994 nor held a seat in the U.S. Senate since Bob Krueger departed the scene a quarter century ago.

Cruz, having served as solicitor general under then-Attorney General Greg Abbott, utilized the energy, anger and momentum of the tea party movement to win his seat in 2012. His defeat of then-Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst rang in a new era in Texas Republicanism — one borne not of George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservativism” nor of Texas House Speaker Joe Straus’ economically focused governance, but of the anger, resentment and division on which the GOP thrives today.

The Cruz of 2018 is nothing new; this campaign is merely a highly distilled reworking of previous ones. If anything, Cruz doubles down on what we now call Trumpism but what just as well might be called Cruzism: thinly veiled (if veiled at all) dog whistles designed to bring out voters’ worst instincts rather than appealing to their better angels.

This is largely because Cruz does not espouse, nor does he appear to possess, any better angels of his own. What Texas’ junior senator does represent is a disdain not just for government, but for governance itself — a philosophy that now borders on nihilism.

Cruz is the Wizard of Oz, hiding behind a curtain of empty rhetoric and ambition, beckoning voters down a Yellow Brick Road that leads nowhere beyond his own re-election.

What matters to Ted Cruz? Whatever is going to turn out his base on Election Day. His campaign has consistently relied on lowest common denominator tactics.

Last week, in a move that must have taken serious study of the nastiest polling data they could get their hands on, the Cruz campaign released a video of O’Rourke speaking about the death of Botham Jean at the hands of a Dallas police officer. In the clip, O’Rourke’s words are impassioned but not histrionic. His demand that law enforcement officers be held to account for their actions (just as any other citizen would be) is pointed, but never goes beyond what any reasonable Texan might say.

To whom is the challenger speaking? The congregation of an African American church, which responds in agreement, standing and affirming the speaker’s words. This is a community for whom the death of Jean is not conceptual, but an all-too-real possibility. For some, a life-shattering reality.

Look more closely, though. Cruz’s camp does nothing by accident. Why post this video, in this place, about this topic? O’Rourke stands on the stage demanding equal justice before the law for all, and that all Americans should be able to peacefully reside in their homes without fear of winding up shot to death. In this assertion of justice and liberty, the Cruz campaign sees a chance to attack O’Rourke as a supposed weak-on-crime lefty liberal.

What did Cruz impart to his supporters and viewers? That O’Rourke is for them — not for you. Given Cruz’s inability and unwillingness to reach across the aisle, for any reason, he must continually provide inputs for his most MAGA-esque voters. This is your state. This is your country. Don’t let them take it away.

Cruz has no other strategy beyond dividing Texans in order to conquer them, and no compunction about employing it. The end justifies any means. Saul Alinsky would be proud.

Texas is too big, too diverse and too great a state to be the continual launching pad for a senator who, six years into office, can boast of no major accomplishment other than having exactly one friend: Utah Republican Mike Lee. Cruz’s relationships are transactional and in the service of his personal mission. Cruz, like too many Texas Republicans these days, would sacrifice what is best about the Lone Star State — low unemployment, a leader in science and technology, a massive economic engine — on the altar of tribalism.

In a highly publicized event in March last year, Democrat O’Rourke and Congressman Will Hurd, a Republican, embarked on a road-trip half way across the country to make it back to Washington after a snowstorm closed the airports. They chronicled their trip on Facebook and became the model for what Texas, and America, can be: two individuals of differing backgrounds, politics and philosophies working through their differences and finding solutions to complicated problems.

Cruz would never, could never, take such a journey. That would require the understanding that one person cannot have all the answers, that politics is more than a zero-sum game, that public servants serve a constituency bigger than themselves.

In November, Texans should provide Cruz the retirement he so richly deserves and the time to ponder his place in the world.

Reed Galen is an independent political consultant. Formerly a Republican, he worked on the presidential campaigns of Sen. John McCain and George W. Bush, as well as serving under then-Commissioner David Dewhurst at the Texas General Land Office.