You can’t shake a tree these days without a whiny Trump supporter falling out of it. The latest thing they have fixated on is Cruz’s fully legal and within-the-rules wrangling of the delegate selection process. Witness Trump’s Harpy-in-Chief, Ann Coulter:

Cruz willing to use every scheme to block Trump delegates from convention,but can’t fathom how to block Muslim immigrants from the country.

— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) April 14, 2016

This, I thought was a perfect response:

@AnnCoulter Trump supporters bankruptcies excuse- he’s just taking advantage of the rules. Makes him a good business man.

— Bree Dent (@BreeDent1) April 14, 2016

The only problem is that it requires Trump supporters to remember way back, back to the days before the primordial ooze was formed, six whole months ago, which is farther back than any Trump supporter can recall at all. At the time, Trump was being pressed gently about two facts: 1) that his companies tended to go habitually bankrupt, leaving his creditors in the lurch and 2) that he once attempted to use eminent domain to screw an old woman out of her home so he could build a limousine parking lot for one of his casinos.

Trump’s response to these undoubtedly true charges was “I took advantage of the laws of this country and did what any businessman would have done.” There was no justification offered for why these actions were right or fair; they were legal and they helped Trump get ahead, so his minions actually used them as evidence that Trump was a brilliant business man possessed of great foresight.

Now comes Ted Cruz, and he is showing Donald Trump how ruthless calculation is done. And all he is doing is what he is legally allowed to do. By earning certain numbers of votes, Trump has earned the legally bound votes of delegates for one (or in some cases two, three, or four rounds).

That’s it. If he wanted to make sure that the delegates were personally loyal to him, then he needed to take one extra step; an extra step he couldn’t be bothered with. Ted Cruz very much could be bothered with it. So really, in a head to head competition, Ted Cruz has shown who the brilliant analytical and planning mind really belongs to in this election.

But remember, when Trump was crowing about his ability to take advantage of the laws on the books, it was evidence of Trump’s brilliance. When Cruz beats Trump at his own game, it’s evidence of a giant conspiracy against Trump and all his supporters.

What jokes these people are.