Yeah, But...

[Content Note: Violence; bigotry.]

Senator Lindsey Graham (hey, remember when he was running for president?) says he's now backing Senator Ted Cruz, even though he pretty famously hates Cruz's stinking guts:

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham has thrown his support to Ted Cruz, calling him "the best alternative" to Donald Trump.

According to an invitation obtained by POLITICO, Graham will headline a fundraiser for Cruz on Monday.

This marks the second senator to publicly support Cruz, and is a significant development: Graham, a more centrist South Carolina senator, until recently openly detested his colleague from Texas. But in recent weeks he has suggested that Cruz stands the best chance of beating Donald Trump.

Okay. Sure. Except that Cruz is just as bad as Trump: Trump says he would kill terrorists' families (war crime); Cruz says he would carpet bomb IS territory (war crime). Trump says he would deport millions of undocumented immigrants; Cruz says he would deport millions of undocumented immigrants. Trump doesn't want Syrian refugees; Cruz doesn't want Syrian refugees. Etc.

Both of them are anti-choice and anti-universal healthcare, and, incredibly, Trump is actually better on these issues than Cruz: Trump at least supports funding Planned Parenthood's non-abortion healthcare services and argues to keep the Affordable Care Act's preexisting condition provision. Cruz doesn't, on either count.

How, exactly, is Ted Cruz "the best alternative," or even any alternative at all, to Donald Trump? I mean, yeah, he doesn't talk about his dick during debates, but he's still a xenophobic, queerphobic, misogynistic warmonger who would use the nation's social safety net as toilet paper given half a chance.

Again, I'll note that the objection from "centrist" Republicans isn't to Trump's positions. They object to the fact that he refuses to pretend those positions are anything but the rank bigotry and violence that they are.

Graham is supporting Cruz not because he's less heinous, but because he's more circumspect about it; because he's "civil" about the profoundly indecent Republican platform.