Age of the Geek

You can't always get what you want

 
     Who has wild hair, a tendency to yell and is turning out to be a more popular presidential candidate every day?
     It’s not Donald Trump. Well, it is, but it’s also Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
     While Trump’s rampage through the Republican primary continues unhindered by logic or reason, Bernie Sanders has been quietly making gains against the perceived inevitability of Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee. His last speech attracted more than 15,000 people, which is roughly 15,000 more than most of the presidential wannabees out there have been able to manage.
     Perhaps I wasn’t giving the general public enough credit when I said that Sanders is too much like an average person to be elected. Maybe the system isn’t as broken as I thought it was and the candidate whose ideals most closely align with the majority of people can win after all.
     Or maybe it’s because of Trump.
     After all, Trump is still the frontrunner in the Republican primary by a significant amount. Most of the recent polls place Trump at anywhere between 20 and 35 points, often receiving twice the votes of his next closest competitor. It’s as though 1 in 4 Republicans have simply decided to stop treating the GOP as a viable political party and just want to see how far the Trump train can go before it derails.
     Or worse, they actually think Trump can win in the general election.
     With that kind of attitude, it’s no wonder that Democrats might think they can start looking at the candidate they want to win, rather than the candidate they think can win. Particularly if Trump decides to run as a third-party candidate, which would all but ensure victory for Democrats no matter who they run.
     This is good news for Sanders. With Trump around to raise the bar on what crazy yelling people look like, Sanders looks more moderate and reasonable by comparison. (This would, in theory, benefit the rest of the Republican field as well, if Trump weren’t dominating them.)
     That’s not to say that Sanders has a clear path to the White House. Hillary Clinton may yet be an insurmountable obstacle, but the potential is there.
     Which begs the question, “Would I support a Sanders presidential run?”
     It seems like a no brainer. Sanders is a hardcore leftist. A social progressive with utter contempt for big banks and the games they play on our economy.
     If I’m in to that sort of thing, and I am, then it should be an easy decision.
     Clinton holds many of the same views and supports the same policies, but they aren’t as central to her identity. She would almost assuredly be more of a centrist than Sanders.
     But would a Sanders presidency really be preferable to a Clinton one?
     In an ideal world, you would want the candidate that will fight the hardest for your ideals. But we don’t live in an ideal world and no matter how much disarray the Republican Party is in, the fact is the GOP still hold Congress. It appears the Senate and House of Representatives will be wholly owned by Republicans until at least 2020 when, hopefully, redistricting will remove their gerrymandered stranglehold.
     Even if Bernie Sanders were to ride into the White House on a wave of popular votes, Republican leaders in Congress wouldn’t consider his election a mandate from the country to support his policies any more than they did in the last two elections.
     After all, this is a Congress that shut down the government in its petulant opposition to Barack Obama. Imagine how they would react if they had to deal with an actual leftist.
     Hillary might not be very personable. She doesn’t invoke warm fuzzy feelings. She is calculating, if not ruthless, and doesn’t seem at all afraid to play a little dirty. Not great qualities for getting to the White House, but certainly useful traits once you are there.
     It’s yet another conflict between pragmatism and principal.
     In my heart of hearts I support Sanders and would love to live in his vision of America, but my head still says Hillary is the better option to actually get closer to that vision.

 
     Travis Fischer is a newswriter for Mid-America Publishing and is OK with picking the lesser of two good options.