(I agree with you, btw.)
First -- how did we get this desperate?
Two fold. The deliberate policy of secularization by the left, by capturing all the institutions which shape and guide public opinion: first the schools, then the Universities, (including, quite importantly for later, the Law Schools), and the news press, and the entertainment industries.
Seeding acceptance of homosexuality, to the point that a Lavender mafia promoted itself through mutual back scratching, to achieve multiple positions of high standing within many industries: then foisting "tolerance and diversity" as a cudgel to attack Christians.
(Note that Hillary is now pretty much an open lesbian; the rumors of Obama and the gay bath houses culminating in the "in your FACE" rainbow lights at the White House...and don't forget Denny Hastert (once *GOP* speaker of the House,charged in hush money payments to what is rumored to be an underaged boy)
and the former head of the GOP Ken Mehlman being homosexual, not to mention Cruz getting significant funding from homosexuals and the Rubio "foam party" and other rumors; and on the other side, a relentless pushing of feminaziism, including no-fault divorce, de-stigmatizing of sluttery and the presentation of unwed, single mothers as heroic champions of self-determination rather than stupid whores, affirmative action hiring and mentoring of women over qualified men, and abortion on demand and the pill.
And the deliberate seeding of homosexuals into the Catholic Churches by the KGB. No, I'm not kidding.
Second, on the GOP side, in addition to the seeding in of many Democrat moles, and the loss of the Christian consensus, the replacement by the globalists and the Chamber of Commerce / Cheap Labor Express, who under Bush '41 deliberately sabotaged and threw away ALL of Reagan's accomplishments, and practiced a policy of "run Right, govern left (or at least cave all the time)" relying on a captive left press to cover this up. This has been compounded by the Cheap Labor Express selling out most of the US economy to China, with the foul propaganda that "consumers DEMAND lower prices"...
(Note the counterexamples of high priced athletic shoes, none of those lower costs get passed on; of Apple Products, produced in China yet more expensive than the MicroSUCKS-based products which were also made in China; of (a few years back) the skyrocketing cost of gasoline (both out-of-kilter with the price of oil,*and* subject to rapid, single-day jumps to 25cents/gallon, which is far faster than changes in demand could work their way through the supply chain; and ignoring the inconvenient fact that when stuff from China first began appearing on the shelves, people complained loudly that it was "cheap sh*t" and they WANTED their American-made goods back, but there were none to be had; and finally, remember the toxin-laden drywall from China and melamine ridden pet food (melamine added to goose the sample assay of the pet for for protein, at lower cost and without regard to nutritive value or to toxicity).
Someone on FR had noted the role of "Pappy Bush" (41, the former CIA director) and suggest a lot of the "New World Order" crap came from him; upon reading it, I am inclined to agree; also blame Ted Kennedy, whom I fervently hope is rotting in Hell, for his lying through his foul teeth about the 1965 immigration agreement, designed to replace Caucasians in the US with Third Worlders who share neither our Western-European genes, nor our faith, nor our worldview). See (Vanity) A Look Back at Immigration, or Fifty Years of Lies.
Two things have happened to stop this march. OK, three.
1) The Internet. People have found they can talk to others and that they are not alone. Not just breaking the leftist monopoly on the news (Limbaugh helped with that) but both eliminating the sense of helpless isolation, and replacing it with a) community and b) replacing the "I *knew I saw that somewhere" with the "you said it *HERE*" and getting to pushback in real time. The left is trying to counteract this with Faceberg / Cuckbook, and with the SJW entryism into both Twitter and open-source-programming but these are doomed to fail, as the internet famously "interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."
2) Obama. He has been so f*cking BLATANT (along with Nancy Pelosi's triumphant march with the gavel, and John Roberts replacing the literal text of the law with autofellatory blather) that it became quite clear the whole game has been rigged.
and finally, to culminate in the answer to your question
3) Cruz was poised to take advantage of this through his relatively high intellect (I have read 150, but *many* FReepers are well North of that), and Ivy League Pedigree, to monopolize the Evangelicals through laser-focused data analytics on messaging, and become *THE* voice of the resistance. For the GOP-e, THEY were going to "win without the base" as the Big Donor Class told ¿Jeb?, and the rules of the primaries were designed so that (as they thought) Bush would get constant small pluralities in a highly fractured field, causing a bandwagon effect, and preventing the entrance of any populists late in the game.
Enter The Donald. He out-populist'ed Cruz, ironically enough, despite ("Two Corinthians") *NOT* being an Evangelical, simply by shouting over Megyn Kelly when she attempted the timeworn "war on womyn" trope which she though would sink him, and he did it in particularly clever way: when she listed what he'd said 'about some women',he answered "ROSIE O'DONNELL". This did several things: a) it allowed him to lightning-rod the anger to ground, since he chose a target whom pretty much ALL Republicans dislike; b) he didn't cower or squirm, he reframed (red pill); he got a cathartic cheer from gazillions of those on the right who were tired of GOTCHA questions only given to Republicans while democrats got the customary reach-around-with-a-complimentary-chocolate-on-the-pilllow from the press. So he stole BOTH Cruz's thunder (I am the savior populism -- Cruz didn't help by being off-scale smug and condescending, nor by his choice of that Roe guy to run dirty tricks, which undercut Cruz's squeaky-clean Christian image)...and did to Bush, what Bush had hoped to do to the field, by garnering a plurality in a divided field.
There. 16 volumes, 35 million words.
I take chocolate and AMERICAN Express. ;-)
Good points!
Actually, first the RATs....then everything else you said.
Most all the rest you wrote I cannot disagree with, either. The retelling of what Cruz generally is (pretty much the real deal as far as his political conservatism) and then the why and how of apparent campaign missteps. Only relatively small missteps is all it takes ---if you're not otherwise a rank, hustling womanizer (but enough about Billy Jeff), and how Trump had been able to capitalize on voter frustration from moment of entry into the race, working that to his own advantage --is-- how it happened in the last few paragraphs of the ever exciting saga of America's falling from grace (what grace could be mustered in the name of God -from Him, from His own promises made to mankind, and on account of what righteousness among the little people, the everyday working folk of America there has been throughout it's history --despite the perpetual scalawag class and assorted lower orders of everyday criminals).
But there right at the end --- as for the opportunistic Trump, that man doing much as you've laid it out, and people have been responding to it;
How far can this man be trusted? He looks like a hijacker, a high-stakes hustler. Who is it all for? I can't get it out of my head he may have been sent, not by God, but by the DNC.
I could explain that further, and have previously on these pages went into explanation for why I think that is highly possible, and could do so again, in this response to your reply. I wrote a long section addressing this aspect of my own suspicions ---but I'm cutting it out of this note. That should generate a sigh of relief somewhere, and my mentioning sighs of relief generate a rude response from some wise-acre who'll tell me he always "skips over" my comments. I can hardly wait until time to be personally insulted and abused, again.
Still, I wanted to provide acknowledgment of your own thoughtfulness, even as the question "how did we get this low" I did not expect anyone to answer.