“It’s no secret, it’s the influence of Donald Trump that has driven deep divides in the GOP primary, web communities, families, friendships.”
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With all due respect, what you fail to mention is that Trump and Cruz are a reflection of widespread, deep discontent and anger at GOP failures and backstabbing for far too many years. That is what gave rise to the success of these two candidates in the first place. They rightfully tapped into the vein of anger and distrust at the party.
Had the GOP been an effective party in representing conservative interests instead of being concerned only with the exclusive and unresponsive club that it is, Trump and Cruz would not have gotten the traction they did.
Whatever divides there are within the GOP voting base are directly attributable to the many failures of the GOP. They brought this discord upon themselves. Unfortunately, frustration with their complete failure has spread across the country like wildfire. Feelings of betrayal engender a high emotional response.
The inept GOPe has made matters even worse with their clumsy handling of the delegate situation and unnecessary meddling in the process. That has only served to further infuriate the base. The GOP could help to reconcile the divisions in the party by becoming a more responsible organization, but that seems unlikely at this point. It remains as confused, directionless, and unprincipled as always.
You are missing the point though, Cruz is an outsider candidate but most of his support is based on logic and intellectual conclusions. Cruz’s supporters are 2 camps really - 1) Those who have looked at his clear record of conservatism pretty much all of his life and decided he is the true conservative in the race, and 2) those who support him mostly because they don’t like Trump (these types were typically supporting a different candidate prior to switching their support to Cruz as something of a last resort). There is much, much less of an emotional connection between Cruz and his followers than you see with Trump and his supporters.
Trump supporters are fanatical about the man, the policies seem to come 2nd to supporting the man himself. It almost doesn’t matter what his policies are as seen by the fact he has no track record of being a conservative and many of his positions aren’t conservative at all. Trump supporters will defend virtually anything Donald says or does, because they are emotionally invested in Trump himself far more than the policies he advocates (which often change depending on the day).
Most Cruz supporters I know don’t have much problem discussing his faults. Most backing Cruz know he has likability issues, is regarded as willing to charge into fights without an endgame in mind (though many/most may consider that being principled), etc. I mean the support for Cruz is, for the most part, not based on the man himself - rather it is mostly his clear ideological record of being a conservative (obviously this isn’t counting those who are just throwing in with the last option they see who can stop Trump).
Trump support is just a different animal altogether. It seems to be more on a gut/emotional level. Sure, they may support whatever policies he is advocating today, but if Trump changes his mind and advocates something different tomorrow they will still support him.
This is the biggest part of your divide. You don’t have 2 camps who are just backing different candidates for ideological reasons, you have 1 camp who is emotionally invested in a candidate that they deeply connect with, and another camp who support their candidate for logical/intellectual reasons and see the 1st camp’s candidate as a clown, buffoon, bully, etc.
Sure, the establishment can be held ultimately responsible for the outsiders rise, but that doesn’t change the place we are at now in terms of the Trump and Cruz camps completely looking past one another on almost every aspect of the campaign.