Trump vs Cruz: PICK YOUR POISON: Why the GOP are screwed.

http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/trump-vs-cruz-pick-your-poison-why-gops-screwed?akid=14046.294211.GBZyIc&rd=1&src=newsletter1052260&t=12

Trump vs. Cruz, Pick Your Poison! This Is Why the GOP's Screwed

There are only two options left: The hated Cruz or turning the party over to Trump.

To appreciate how extraordinary and disturbing this situation really is, we must take a historical trip back to a simpler, more innocent time, aka last year. Back then, Nate Silver’s justly respected website FiveThirtyEight.com was practically certain of two things: The two candidates in the very crowded Republican presidential field who had no shot at the nomination were Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.

They had no real chance, the site argued, because Trump and Cruz were each in their own way far too radical candidates for the GOP to actually nominate. Trump’s radicalism is too obvious to belabor. The idea that a virulently racist demagogue, proto-fascist authoritarian strongman, and self-parodying cultural caricature left over from the 1980s could win the Republican nomination for president was crazy on its face, as all reasonable people (with the occasional exception) observed last summer.

As for Ted Cruz, his radicalism was of a different sort than Trump’s, but in many ways he was an even more extreme character.  FiveThirtyEight.com pointed out that Cruz was not merely very conservative (all GOP presidential candidates now fit that description, as the party has shifted increasingly rightward in recent years), but radically right-wing, to an extent never before seen in modern American presidential elections.