In the frenzy over Donald Trump s meteoric rise in the polls, many voters seem to have forgotten that his closest competitor, Sen. Ted Cruz, is equally nutty, just as much of a liar, and possibly even more dangerous.In South Carolina, Cruz s entire campaign rests on appealing to the state s deeply religious conservative population. Unfortunately, he s still losing to Trump by a wide margin   even among evangelicals. As a last-ditch effort, Cruz appears to have tapped his  South Carolina Evangelical Chairman,  a conservative pastor named Mike Gonzalez, to promise Christian Republicans the one thing that Trump won t: An American theocracy.On MSNBC, Gonzalez told host Joy Reid that a Ted Cruz presidency would be based in Christianity. What about the Constitution which strictly prohibits that? Easy, explained Pastor Gonzalez, the separation of Church and State is a lie and Cruz sees that. Well, the reality of it is that this idea of the separation of church and state is a myth. I mean, you bring your faith into the marketplace like you do anything else. So Ted Cruz is a   will be a president not just, you know who is a preacher and pastor in the White House, That s not the idea. I believe all Americans can rally around Ted Cruz because he upholds the constitution. I believe all Americans want to truly uphold the law. Some of the laws Cruz doesn t believe should be upheld: Healthcare reform (he shutdown the government trying to stop it). Gay marriage (he tried to shut down the government trying to stop it). Abortion rights. Welfare programs. The right of a (Democratic) president to pick Supreme Court justices. The list goes on.Reid wasn t buying Gonzalez s crap. Immediately, she pushed back on the idea that the Constitution was cool with Ted Cruz establishing a theocracy. The separation of church and state is not a myth, it s a constitutional fact. It s a fact on the ground. It s a part of our constitutional makeup. The founding fathers were explicit that they did not want to have a national church. Can a candidate like Ted Cruz run on essentially saying he would ignore that part of the constitution, if you re saying he s a president who would actually run on the constitution? As Mediaite s Tommy Christopher pointed out, Cruz has been pretty explicit about the idea that he would run the White House as if it were his personal church. I m a Christian first, I m an American second, I m a conservative third, and I m a Republican fourth, and that s part of the problem, is that there are too many people who don t have that ordering correct. It s becoming clear that the voters supporting Cruz are hoping to fulfill their wish of reversing many of the secular and progressive laws that have been passed in the last few decades (particularly under Obama). As we ve seen with the battle over gay marriage, the issue is never about the rights of other people, but imposing conservative Christian beliefs on everyone in America. For that, Cruz is their man.Watch the scary exchange below.Featured image from MSNBC