What if Rohan and Gondor had ultimately been unable to overcome years of grudges and mutual suspicion, allowing their fragile alliance to collapse at the decisive moment? What if men had allowed petty rivalries and selfish pursuits of glory to undermine their assault on a common existential threat, giving Sauron the opening to smash their ranks and cast a shadow over the land for all time? It perhaps would look something like the collapse of the historic deal announced this morning for Ted Cruz and John Kasich to team up in their efforts to stop Donald Trump from winning the Republican nomination. A Trump nomination would be a “sure disaster” for the GOP, Cruz’s campaign said earlier today, setting “the party back a generation.” And yet neither candidate could bring himself to tell his supporters to vote for the other guy. Kasich said voters in the important Indiana primary “ought to vote for me,” in direct contravention of the terms of the alliance. “We never tell voters who to vote for,” Cruz’s campaign told supporters. Clearly there’s no strength left in the world of Men.
The great Cruz-Kasich alliance to save humanity is already dead.
