I have no reason to believe this is true, but I wrote it anyway. Because it was fun.

[N]ominally, you’re projecting that only you [Ted Cruz] can save the party from a terrible mistake, because Trump is unelectable. But you know that if the convention were willing to overlook the clear plurality winner, and electability were the primary criterion for their choice, there’s no way the delegates would turn to you. So you’re also making the argument that Trump is not a “real conservative” — as, indeed, he isn’t by the standards that prevail among those who cherish the definitions of such contested terms. But if I recall correctly, in your view much of the party’s leadership fails that test as well. So why would you be laboring to throw open the election to the delegates, a cross-section of the people who form the sinews of the GOP, to decide of their own free will who the nominee should be?

You’re not Bernie Sanders, soldiering on without hope of victory with the aim of influencing the party platform and forcing the nominee to take your demands into consideration. If that were your object, you wouldn’t be playing these silly games, making pacts and announcing running mates. You’d just be trying to win as many delegates as you can on a principled basis — and you’d be angling for a VP slot yourself, not naming one of your own.

Moreover, if you were still trying to woo enough delegates to win outright, why would you announce your VP choice now? At the convention, that very choice could be the prize that nets you precious delegates from the Marco Rubio or Kasich corner, as well as their admirers among the uncommitted.

So what are you up to?

Well, if Trump is really unacceptable to true conservatives, then presumably true conservatives shouldn’t vote for him, even at the risk of electing Hillary Clinton. And if Trump is really an unprecedentedly dangerous person to elect president — because of his temperament, his blithe ignorance, or his manifest insincerity — then nobody should vote for him, regardless of their ideology.

And if either or both of those things are true, then neither should you. Or your supporters.

The Cruz campaign set out to redeem the Republican Party from its pusillanimous  pessimists and appeasers, the very people who are now prepared to pussyfoot with Trump in the hopes of achieving some semblance of party unity. But what if they can’t achieve unity that way at all — because if they try, you’ll free Cruz-Fiorina 2016 from the party?

Of course, such an independent campaign would be extremely unlikely to achieve victory. It wouldn’t even be on the ballot in most states — and if it got any meaningful number of votes, they’d come almost entirely out of Trump’s hide. Hillary Clinton would win in a crushing landslide, sweeping not only the blue and purple states but potentially taking states like Texas and Georgia, where there are enough Democrats to win a three-way race, or even Utah, where Trump is deeply unpopular.

But instead of staying home and sulking, all your voters (and the handful of #NeverTrump voters) would at least turn out to vote — and they’d presumably vote for the GOP candidates for the House and Senate. Republican representatives and senators would feel freer than they otherwise might to proclaim their independence from Trump if he proved toxic in their district, and independents otherwise inclined to punish the GOP would see Clinton’s inevitability as a reason to keep her in check by voting for the GOP for Congress.

You could almost call bolting the party a loyal thing to do, under the circumstances.

Or, if you prefer to see it as a threat, well, there’s one way the delegates at the convention could prevent it from coming to pass.

Enjoy.