With each new primary win, it is looking more likely than ever Donald Trump will be the GOP’s presidential nominee. The hated, divisive figure with zero political experience may well be the one to carry Republican hopes for retaking the White House.
Great news for Democrats, you would think, right? You could almost see the headlines, “Landslide, Cakewalk.” But not so fast. Who will the Democrats most likely put up against this hated, divisive Republican… a hated, divisive figure of their own, Hillary Clinton.
It is abundantly clear that Americans, both Republican and Democrat, are sick and tired of politics as usual. They don’t want to remodel the house; they want a complete teardown. They want revolution, not evolution. Trump offers something radically different to Republican voters; Hillary Clinton does not.
The revolutionary Democratic candidate is, of course, Bernie Sanders.
But while Sanders has the right message, he is the wrong messenger for a number of reasons.
Bernie Sanders likes to refer to himself as a “democratic socialist.” Try as he may to explain to the American voter what that means, how it is not threatening in anyway, his only real success has been among young voters. To older Americans, socialism is seen as communism and well you know how that works. The ironic twist is that Bernie is not even a registered Democrat. He is an Independent.
Bernie is a spry 74 year-old. But the fact remains, at that age, he would be the oldest president ever to serve in office. How can he lead the revolution, some ask, if he will most likely need a walker by the end of his first term? What about a second term?
Just imagine for a moment Bernie’s message of a corrupt political system, where the deck is stacked against the middle and lower classes, coming from, lets say, a John Kennedyesque figure. Against a buffoon like Donald Trump, the Republican Party would no doubt be relegated to the dustbin of history after a certain electoral calamity.
But Democrats have Hillary. A deeply flawed candidate, from a deeply blemished political clan.
This presidential election cycle has produced a “perfect storm” on both sides of the political divide, with one candidate hated by his political party; one candidate propped up by her party’s elites. Who will American voters hate the least?
(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)