On Sunday morning, Texas U.S. Sen. John Cornyn thought it would be a good idea to tweet out a quote by Benito Mussolini, the Word War II-era fascist dictator in Italy.

“We were the first to assert that the more complicated the forms assumed by civilization, the more restricted the freedom of the individual must become.”

The point seems to have been an oblique criticism of the rise of democratic socialists in the American political system. It’s clumsy and lazy at best — which is also a general description of Twitter overall. Why quote someone on the far right like Mussolini to attack the left? European fascists were explicit enemies of both socialism and democracy — the two key tenets of democratic socialism. Don’t forget whom it was they first came for in Martin Niemoller’s famous poem.

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist,” the theologian wrote.

Is Cornyn really trying to compare Mussolini to left-wing Democrats who want Medicare for all? That cheapens the inhumanity of a fascist Italian regime and completely misunderstands the goals of Democrats and others who are calling for changes. Or does he believe Americans cross into despotism the moment they turn 65 and get onto single-payer health care? The United States is already a mixed economic system. After nearly 40 years of stagnant wages and wealth concentration in the top .1 percent, a good number of Americans are ready to throw something new into the mix.

People are frustrated and politicians are so much more willing to bandy inflammatory quotes from history on Twitter than focus on immediate material concerns. Twitter isn’t real life, but social media is a powerful megaphone — one that elected officials should aspire to use effectively.

Tuesday night, a woman rang my doorbell in the middle of a thunderstorm to ask if she could park her car in my driveway. The streets were flooding and her vehicle was starting to stall in the high water. There are 94 days until the beginning of hurricane season, and all the major infrastructure projects and big promises that we heard from politicians after the Memorial Day flood, Tax Day flood and Hurricane Harvey seem to have gotten lost somewhere in the Twitter feed.

No major post-Harvey projects are even close to beginning construction. Even Project Brays, which was supposed to help prevent flooding after Tropical Storm Allison nearly 18 years ago, is still suffering from major delays. City Council continues to struggle with elevating homes in Meyerland. Texas is supposed to get $4.7 billion for post-Harvey flood mitigation projects, but Department of Housing and Urban Development hasn’t even published the rules outlining how those funds can be spent.

Given all these problems, you’d expect to see our state’s senior senator tweeting the business at HUD secretary Ben Carson, or scolding the Army Corps of Engineers, or imploring Congress to keep the Gulf Coast safe from another devastating storm.

He’s not. While he’s been a reliable champion for Harvey relief in the Senate, Cornyn hasn’t mentioned the word “flood” once this entire year on his Twitter account. He has mentioned socialism four times — Harvey only got three mentions. Local issues get routine shout-outs, but the bully pulpit gets pounded for ideology.

Maybe when a Category Four Marxism drops more than 50 inches of rain on our city it’ll make sense for a senator from Texas to worry about left-wing politics. The immediate threat to Houston is now and remains flooding. Our city needs politicians who treat flood resilience as the single most important policy issue — on and off Twitter. It doesn’t matter whether they’re capitalists or socialists, we just need someone who can get the job done.

Instead, our senator is quoting fascists.

Mintz is the Chronicle’s deputy opinion editor and a member of the editorial board.