One of the wonderful things about American presidential politics is that it provides such a superb opportunity for any person who possesses a hugely grandiose view of himself to discover just how few of his fellow citizens share it. Ted Cruz is affording himself such an opportunity.

If the key to high achievement in the art of cynicism is effectively veiling the cynicism Cruz is nakedly unsuccessful.

His pathology of septic ambition, and embrace of cynicism are so transparent small children and the elderly faint in mere proximity to them. His personality is so oily Freud would categorize the type as: Exon Valdez.

Few would argue he possess that rarest of gifts in American politics: the ability to take a largely unpopular ideology, adulterate it with impossible to swallow dogmatism, serve it for like-minded audiences who respond with Munich 1933 levels of enthusiasm, then shove it down the throats of the rest with as little grace and as much contempt as possible. If his slogan isn’t I like Ike, that isn’t solely because his name is Ted.

Perhaps no one in the history of American presidential politics has prepared himself so exclusively (Princeton and Harvard) and preened himself as arrogantly for his salesmanship to the dim and duped.

Unlike Willard Romney, who could float a ludicrous assertion one day, deny it the next, and make an even more ridiculous one on the following day, Cruz will surely remain unwavering. There shall be a steady stream from the Asteroid Belt on a mechanically reliable basis.

His heritage, John Birch, expatriate anti-Castro fanaticism is the kind that celebrates the date of the JFK assassination as a national holiday. So it’s vintage ultra-right extremity rebottled with cosmetically re-touched, Ayn Rand, neo-feudalist labeling.

Discerning manifestly unsound, potentially dangerous demagogues, and cautioning the American public about them, no longer are in the journalistic wheelhouse of America’s mainstream press. So you’ll have to do the work yourself.

But you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll piss yourself if recent history is any guide.