David Brooks, conservative pundit, does a decent job identifying the problem:
Very few presidents are so terrible that they genuinely endanger their own nation, but Trump and Cruz would go there and beyond. Trump is a solipsistic branding genius whose “policies” have no contact with Planet Earth and who would be incapable of organizing a coalition, domestic or foreign.
Cruz would be as universally off-putting as he has been in all his workplaces. He’s always been good at tearing things down but incompetent when it comes to putting things together.
But his solution?
There’s a silent majority of hopeful, practical, programmatic Republicans [...] Please don’t go quietly and pathetically into the night.
Ha ha ha ha! Seriously? The data is clear. That “hopeful, practical, programmatic” wing of the GOP is maybe a quarter of them, a smaller cohort than the tea party-fueled Donald Trump wing (30 percent), or the crazy religious wingnut contingent currently backing Cruz (26 percent).
But hey, those Republicans sure do love their “silent majorities,” eh?