There really is no danger that women in a hypothetical draft would be indiscriminately thrown into frontline combat, any more than male conscripts would be. Those who are called up would be subjected to a physical, mental, and moral evaluation process that would determine their fitness for service. On that basis some would be inducted and others not, and those who are would then have to endure the rigors of basic training, after which the inductees would be evaluated once again to determine their fitness for frontline combat, as well as for numerous non-combat duties.

Military duty assignments never have been and never will be made on an open and indiscriminate basis. Which means that the only female recruits who would be sent into frontline combat are those (presumably few) who are able to meet an extremely high and rigorous set of physical standards. No one is going to call up Ted Cruz’s daughter and arbitrarily throw her into a foxhole with a 220-pound psychopath.

So why is Cruz trash talking his opponents for daring to affirm the equal opportunity and duty of women to serve their country? Because that’s what right-wing culture warriors do — deploy divisive and hyperbolic rhetoric to send a tribalist signal to a group of culturally alienated voters.