Oh stop. 
No one thought that "Bush Derangement Syndrome" or "Obama Derangement Syndrome" were diagnoses of actual mental illness. 's funny. I actually started this thread after seeing a Trump supporter on another forum decrying the anti-Trump "hysteria" of Republicans that weren't all-in for the Donald.
Personally, it's not sullying the angel that bothers me, in and of itself. What boggles, what mystifies, what rankles; is that people like you and I have been saying for several years that we wanted the GOP to run an actual "small-government" or "conservative" or "real" Republican candidate. Yet here we are, staring at the closest to that we're likely to see in our lifetime, and some of us are tearing down the "angel," and instead pushing someone who is nowhere close to being that kind of Republican. Someone who's only recently begun pretending to be a Republican. I don't think reason explains that.
I can explain it for you, as I have several times, but I can not understand it for you(1). It boils down to seeing the same potful of data and assigning different weights to them while processing them through a different set of priorities. Do you have a similarly difficult time following the reasoning charby used to end up voting for Rubio?
Also, how is it "tearing down" Cruz by repeating words he spoke willingly from his own mouth, no duress? And repeating documented fact such as his loan from Goldman-Sachs.
Cruz is nowhere near the "close enough" conservative. Not even in he same solar system. He is an establishment hack, albeit a young one, but still a hack. If I vote, I will vote for the republican candidate, not for them, but against the democrat.
Well, Cruz is not just that. He is smart, driven, and has good political instincts. But yes, he is a hack who has always been a party man and not much else. Still, better than average and better than the not-as-bright Rubio.
A few levels down the political food chain is a sharp fellow related to my wife at a couple removes by marriage. Smart guy, a few years younger than my wife and I. Majored in poli-sci, went to law school, got on the staff of some senator or representative who had just retired or lost re-election. We were at dinner and he was talking about getting a lawyer-job, but was conflicted. No one was hiring him because he had told too many people he was going to run for some office next year. He asked what he ought to do. I told him I would not likely vote for someone with his CV, even if we were on the same page, politically, because he had never done anything particularly useful, challenging, or character building. I told him his best bet was to get a job, start a business, make a payroll, enlist in the Reserves of NG, get his kids through college. The run for office in 25 years. He was not overjoyed to hear my advice.
Maybe if Cruz had done something,
anything, other than serve his own ambition his entire adult life I would say, "Nope, throwing the dice on Trump just is not worth it." I dunno. As it is, I would say that, credential-wise, Cruz in 2016 is on par with Obama in 2008. OK, I will give Cruz the edge due to his work as TX solicitor general. By all reports, he performed that task with skill.
(1) One piece of information that may help is that the GOP base voted for folk saying the same things Cruz says, elected enough of them to give over an entire branch of gov't to the GOP and the folk we voted into power accomplished...what? They had/have all the power they need. Yet they do not use it. After a while, a rational man must come to the conclusion that
they do not actually want to do what they say. Giving such folk yet another branch of gov't with which they will do nothing to solve our nation's problems hardly seems worth the bother.
