Between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, Trump is the lesser of two evils - Cruz's new popularity should worry us all

Donald Trump's ego drives him to regurgitate vile garbage because he knows it will, against all logic, earn him votes. Ted Cruz, on the other hand, isn’t play-acting. He’s actually drinking the Kool-Aid

Republican presidential candidates greet each other following a debate sponsored by Fox News at the Fox theatre on March 3, 2016 in Detroit, Michigan (Getty Images)

Say what you like about US politics, but this year’s presidential election had a lot of potential. Instead, it’s devolved into nothing more than a desperate bid to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office.

It’s not hard to see why. The guy is a sexist pig with hair plugs that defy physics and a colossal mouth that spews bigoted rhetoric on demand. Screw the issues. At this point, the terrified citizens of Planet Earth would go to hell and back just to keep Trump’s artificially bronze fingers away from a red button. Yet in supporting his main opponent, voters might have accidentally gone a step too far.

After a series of huge primary upsets like Tuesday’s contest in Wisconsin, there’s now a very real chance Texas Senator Ted Cruz could skate past Trump to steal the GOP ticket this summer.

At first glance, that might sound like a big win for humanity. After all, Trump has come out with some shocking stuff in the past few months. But the truth is, he’s just a political tourist passing through crazy town. The guy’s ego drives him to regurgitate this vile garbage because he knows it will, against all logic, earn him votes.

Ted Cruz, on the other hand, isn’t play-acting. He’s actually drinking the Kool-Aid.

Not only does Cruz flat-out refuse to acknowledge the existence of man-made climate change, but he also claims Christians can’t be terrorists and doesn’t believe in the constitutional divide between church and state. And when it comes to healthcare, President Cruz would happily drag America 30 years into the past just to satisfy his own curious belief structure.

Think Donald Trump’s views on abortion are repulsive? Well, Cruz thinks they aren’t repulsive enough. He wants to implement a sweeping, universal ban on abortion – even in cases of incest and rape. Cruz is already doing his damnedest to eradicate potentially lifesaving procedures in Texas by shutting down women’s health clinics based on the width of their hallways.

But Cruz isn’t willing to stop at women’s healthcare. In 2013, he singlehandedly shut down the entire US Government after hogging a Congressional podium for 21 hours straight in a nonsensical bid to prevent lawmakers from passing a new federal budget. He moaned about the civil war, read a couple of children’s books and likened Barack Obama to Hitler for trying to ensure middle class workers had access to health insurance.

In turn, Cruz’s sadist take on the government he now seeks to control has only served to further poison the GOP brand – and his Republican colleagues hate him for it. Senator John McCain lovingly refers to Cruz as a ‘wacko bird’, former House Speaker John Beohner thinks he’s a ‘jackass’ and Republican institution Bob Dole regularly makes fun of Cruz for not having any friends. And these are the guys who are ultimately going to be expected to support Cruz’s presidential bid come what may.

Let’s face it: at the end of the day, Ted Cruz is a right-wing fanatic who would love nothing more than to axe women’s rights, keep poor people from receiving healthcare and let a priest decide which countries NATO should be attacking. The scariest part of all this? He has a far better chance of winning the general election in November than anybody else.

Trump is polling so poorly within his own party right now that Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders could beat the guy with one arm tied behind their backs. But Ted Cruz is a trickier opponent by far. Pollsters say he’s better liked than Hillary Clinton – and with an imminent surge of GOP support, he’s definitely capable of taking down Bernie Sanders vote-for-vote. That makes Ted Cruz far more dangerous than Donald Trump could ever hope to be.

Listen, we all want to see both of these guys fall flat on their faces. Eventually they will. But it’s actually better that Ted Cruz fall first. Believe it or not, right now Donald Trump is the lesser of two evils.