Trumpless Cruz Got This One Right

Can you hear them?

The howls coming from Cleveland, Ohio, and the legions of Republican parrot-heads dithering over Ted Cruz's non-endorsement of Donald Trump at their convention last night.

It's pretty ugly when conservatives boo somebody encouraging them to "vote their conscience."

Hey, everybody else is caving in and mortgaging their integrity to support Trump, the most bizarre candidate the GOP has ever fronted for our presidency.  Why can't Cruz?  After all, in many respects, Cruz is Trump-light, especially when it comes to ego, hyperbole, and schoolyard dust-ups.

Why is he getting so holier-than-thou now, especially since even Indiana's venerable Mike Pence has agreed to butler Trump in the White House?

Well, my friends, if you don't believe the religious, Scriptural reasons for why people who vehemently disagree with Trump shouldn't feel compelled to vote for him anyway, consider this.  It's something your parents probably told you when you were a kid.  If you are a parent, it's probably something you've told your kids.  And it directly applies to politics.

"It's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game."

Right?

Even in politics, it isn't whether you win or lose, but how you play the game.

How do Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump play the game?  And it really is a game to each of them, isn't it?  Granted, the American presidency involves a lot more than a kiddie league scrimmage, or even a major league rivalry.  Yet the principle still applies, doesn't it?  Especially since so much more is at stake?

Indeed, there's a bigger picture here than who will occupy the Oval Office during the next four years.  This election is bigger than political parties.  It's about whether integrity still matters.  It's about whether we're serious about putting somebody in the White House who doesn't see the presidency as a vanity play.

And as a voting American, you get to affirm your convictions.  Do you believe the person who, euphemistically speaking, would be the "leader of the free world," should be accountable to somebody other than themselves, or are you merely a lackey in their quest for power?

This election really isn't any more complicated than that.