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The Trump family scowled down from the VIP box. Boos resounded through the hall. Later, vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence came on to give a pretty good speech, but everyone knew the headlines would be about Cruz’s epic dis.

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On one level, maybe Cruz’s non-endorsement should have come as no surprise. During the campaign, Trump attacked his wife and suggested his father might have been involved in the JFK assassination. Cruz called Trump a “sniveling coward.” It’s kind of hard to walk that stuff back – unless you’re Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie or most of the other candidates Trump vanquished in the primaries.

Cruz decided instead to take a huge gamble. He’s essentially betting that Trump will lose. Having finished second this year, Cruz hopes to establish himself as the prohibitive favorite to win the nomination in 2020.He doesn’t care whether other GOP politicians like him – and they don’t. He doesn’t want to go along, he wants to (eventually) win.

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So far, as conventions go, this one has been chaos. The Trump campaign would struggle to arrange a two-car funeral. How could organizers give Cruz such a prime speaking spot without a guarantee of an endorsement? What did they think when they read Cruz’s prepared remarks? How could they let him do his best to humiliate the party’s newly minted nominee?

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This is yet another of those moments when we will see whether the normal rules of politics somehow don’t apply to Trump. Remember that chaos is his preferred environment. Remember how successful he was as a reality-television star – and then consider the extent to which last night’s events resembled a reality-show episode. Suspense was built. Shade was thrown. Overwrought emotion was put on garish display.