How did we get here? I

Today marks yet another terrible polling day for Trump, and all signs point it only getting worse, however nothing particularly new and horrible happened today so I thought now would be a good time to do a bit of a recap as to how we got in this mess, and by that I mean I want to do a retrospective on the Republican presidential candidates in order of announcement.

Today we start with the first, and most unpleasant one, Ted Cruz. First the facts:

Position: Senator from Texas

Announcement Date: March 23, 2015


Withdrew: May 3, 2016

Accomplishments: Personally largely responsible for the government shutdown of  '08.

Zodiac Killer?: Maybe

Ted Cruz may actually be the worst person in American politics today, a true believer in some form of apocalyptic evangelicalism as well as a massive narcissist and sociopath, Cruz announced his campaign at Liberty University, during an event students were required to be at or be fined.

His intention was to run as an outsider candidate, portraying himself as not part of the Washington machine and therefore able to get things done without conflicts of loyalty, for some reason he didn't speak of how his SuperPACs, funded by about a half dozen billionaires, would affect his decision making process.

To his credit, Cruz does know Washington and how to work the system as it is now, particularly with regards to riling up the Tea Party wing and the evangelicals, which often overlap. It turned out however, that nobody liked him, not in politics, and eventually not the voters. His main problem, as it will turn out to be with so many people, was Donald Trump. A true political outsider, Trump was able to take that label away from Cruz and anyone else who wanted it, the media focus on Trump prevented Cruz from being able to draw attention to his policies and Trump's blatant appeal to the racist and ignorant, as opposed to Cruz's veiled appeals, allowed him to take a large part of Cruz's base away as well.

Cruz, as most of the candidates, refused to directly confront Trump, or even criticize him, on nearly anything, choosing instead to focus on JEB! or whoever else seemed threatening at the time, the major story of this election will be the GOP establishment blinders with regards to Trump, barely anyone even tried doing opposition research on the man and Cruz was no exception. So, without a brand to set him apart, and no challenges to Trump, Cruz was in a tight spot.

Despite all this, he did surprisingly well in the primaries and began making inroads into Trump with a few decent attacks and a fairly robust ground game. He won eight states and looked to be making a shot at a contested convention.

Then he chose Carly Fiorina as his running mate, this was unusual not only because she looks like a snake woman and he looks like a piss golem, but also because picking running mates that early just isn't something that is done, it looked like the last gasp of a campaign and that is what it turned out to be, Cruz did not win anymore primaries and just sort of... faded out of the race until the RNC, when he spoke and famously did not tell the viewers to support Trump, rather to "Vote your conscience". This enraged Trump and his base of course, but Cruz is already planning for 2020 or 2024, and is clearly moving to separate himself from what is rapidly becoming a toxic campaign.

Will it work? Fuck me I hope not, Cruz is a slimeball like almost no other, he should be a Power Rangers villain, he should be a figure of stories told to get children to obey, he deserves only mockery and suffering.