Why Bernie might kill the Dem Party

It’s amazing that the leading Democratic candidate for president is not even a Democrat, it is independent (socialist) Bernie Sanders, who is running as a Democrat only because it offered his best path to victory.

If he didn’t hate the Democratic Establishment before 2016, he certainly did after the behemoth leadership put their thumbs on the scale and probably denied him the party nomination. 

So it’s no skin off his back if Sanders becomes the person who destroys the party, at least the platypus it has turned into. It is an ill-fitting patchwork of radical progressives, blue-collar labor, white-collar teachers’ unions, some extreme positions on abortion (up to the moment of birth) and gun control (we will take them away from you), and every imaginable minority looking for validation.

The Party Establishment fears a Sanders win will result in a George McGovern 1972  electoral massacre. The party went way too far to the left and handed the election to a widely despised Richard Nixon. Sound familiar?

If Sanders doesn’t capture the 1,991 delegates he needs to win the nomination, but has more than anyone else, and the party gives the nomination to an also-ran — Joe Biden? Mike Bloomberg? Michelle Obama? — the Berners will bolt.

The Berners will say to the Democratic National Committee, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. In a Moses-like move, Bernie Sanders will lift his staff, spread his arms and lead his version of the Israelites to the promised land of a third party — the Socialist Party U.S.A. He will take the free-for-all crazies with him. 

Viva Eugene Debs! Viva Norman Thomas!

“You will give the election to Donald Trump,” the Establishment and the liberal media will cry.

“I did it your way last time  and the putz was elected anyway,” thunders Sanders. “Blame yourself.”

In November, Trump wins the election with 45% of the popular vote. Air Canada adds flights from LAX to Toronto.

The Democratic Party is in shambles, resembling the wreckage that was left after the racist Dixiecrats left the party in 1948. A reformation followed.

So, too, the Democratic Party again will reconstitute itself as an actual party of the middle- and working-class, the traditional Americans who believe in a level playing field, no one being above the law, no one being left behind, and, above all, common sense being more important than ethnic identity and the culture of grievance.