William Appel: Cruz more dangerous than Trump

Regarding the Feb. 23 column “Our moment of truth: We must stop Trump”: I agree with Danielle Allen in her assessment that Donald Trump is unfit to be president of the United States. He is a demagogue whose intemperate language would further divide the country, antagonize allies and make the world a more dangerous place.

However, Trump lacks the consistent ideology that would warrant the label “fascist.” Ted Cruz is the much more dangerous candidate.

Cruz is a fanatic who adheres to extremist economic and religious views. He claims to be a constitutional “originalist” yet denies the separation of church and state embodied in the First Amendment. He has pledged to round up the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants and forcibly deport them. Cruz wants to abolish the IRS, further lower taxes on the wealthy and raise them on the working poor by imposing a flat tax. He elevates belief above science by, for example, utterly denying the human impact on global warming.

Rather than rallying support for Marco Rubio, it is imperative that we educate voters about the dangers of demagoguery and help get them to the polls.

This story was originally published February 24, 2016 at 4:49 PM with the headline "William Appel: Cruz more dangerous than Trump."