The thing that really has me puzzled with the likes of Cruz and Hawley is that even if I throw away any conception of what's right and wrong and say "only the politics matters" I still feel like what they tried to do is a gross miscalculation. Like, I get it. You've got this Trump base that if you stand against him you'll be hated and if you fight for him they'll love you. You'd like to court that vote. I understand the political calculation of "going along" with some of this stuff.
But to stand up front and center and just directly hitch your wagon to his star strikes me as foolish. If there was some play where you could take one last meaningless stand, be able to say to the Trump people that you fought as hard as you could, went down swinging, and that was that I'd get it. But, like, this wasn't going to end with "I tried to get an audit but it's over now." Trump was always going to continue to fight on with increasingly more ludicrous loyalty tests. And even if you pass them now you're playing with fire trusting that he will pay you back. His base would be loyal to him. Do one thing that pisses him off and there'll be a knife in your back instantaneously.
Any notion of bending the knee now so that he'll anoint you as a chosen successor is moronic. And Cruz especially knows what kind of character Trump is. Even as a shameless political ploy I continue to be puzzled by the recklessness of this.