The GOP's Choice Of Evils

Neither of the two remaining Republican candidates whom members of the Republican establishment could rally around are viable. Yet, even the Republican establishment dislikes both Trump and Cruz (who absolutely horrify Democrats and many independent voters).

Mark Rubio is already telling his supporters in Ohio to back Ohio Governor Kaisch in the winner take all Ohio primary that he doesn't have a prayer of winning (which gives Kaisch a key boost in a tight race).  This decision is colored by the fact that Rubio has little or no hope of winning the winner take all primary in his home state of Florida and is likely to drop out of the race soon after being defeated decisively by Trump in Florida (a fact Rubio surely knows even if he can't in good faith admit it to his supporters until he drops out).

Of course, for Kaisch, a win in Ohio doesn't make him, who has yet to win any state so far in the Republican primary season, a viable candidate either.  Trump has consistently outperformed Kaisch by wide margins in establishment Republican strongholds in the Northeast and Midwest.

So, Republicans have basically two options.  They can vote for Trump.  Or, they can Vote for Cruz who, with the support of delegates for other candidates who have dropped out of the race by the time the convention comes around, might deny Trump as majority in the Republican National Convention, and then hope that Cruz wins in subsequent rounds of balloting.

This isn't good news for our country. The rhetoric of an imminent crisis has become the norm.

The dire warnings in following piece from Ezra Klein writing for Vox is representative of recent commentary from Democrats and Republicans alike on Trump's candidacy:

He is a man with an evident appetite for suppressing dissent with violence, a man who believes America’s problem is that it’s too gentle to its dissidents. Trump is making an argument for a politics backed by force, for a security service unleashed from “political correctness,” for a country where protesting has consequences. The results are playing out before us, night after night, on our televisions. If Trump wins and this country goes down a dark path, we will never be able to say we didn’t see it coming. We will never be able to say we weren’t warned.

But, the Ted Cruz alternative, a man who has made the distaste that establishment Republicans he deals with every day have for him a badge of honor with angry conservative voters, isn't very reassuring either:

Trump is the candidate of the disoriented, the confused, the needy; Cruz is the candidate of the dogmatist, the moralist, the convicted. Trump gets the voters who fear and adore; Cruz gets the voters who hate and resent. Trump is all show; Cruz means what he says. Trump wants to be everybody’s boss; Cruz wants to be everybody’s master. Ted Cruz is much, much more dangerous than Donald Trump. . . . Whatever your worries may be about the possibility of a Trump presidency, perhaps you can take comfort, as I do, that the confusion of the Trump supporter is less dangerous than the conviction of the voters who support Ted Cruz. Trump supporters are looking for answers, Cruz supporters already know the answers. A fearful person may be made dangerous, but a cruel person is already there.

And, so, the effort to select a new Sith Lord for the United States continues.  There is a reason that I support the other political party, where the current primary season looks more like a contest between Hillary Clinton reprising the old Princess Leia of The Force Awakens, and Bernie Sanders as Yoda.