Embracing Bernie and The Donald

I was actually already embracing the idea of both of them running, but this is a nice column on the subject. On the comparison thing that I've noted in a recent Kathleen Parker column and apparently it occurs (not surprisingly) on Fox News.

However wrong it feels, Democrats ought to embrace the juxtaposition of Trump and Sanders for at least two reasons. First, it’s accurate. Both candidates are indeed authentic representations of their party’s base. Trump is a near-perfect distillation of the modern American right: The bravado, the bigotry, the raging idiocy, the false confidence, and the lack of ideas – it’s all there in one gloriously manicured body.

I was recoiling at the comparison. Now. Not so much. 

Bernie Sanders may well represent the “extreme” left of the Democratic Party, but he has real ideas; arguments can be made against them, of course, but the point is that he offers something substantive against which to argue. Unlike Trump, he has an actual platform, spelling out what he wants to do and how he intends to do it. From infrastructural decay to climate change to tax reform to higher education, Sanders is proposing solutions. Conservatives may not like those solutions, but they at least have to be reckoned with. This is a fundamental distinction between Trump and Sanders, one the GOP would prefer to ignore.

This is something that I've noticed.

There are crucial differences between Trump and Sanders, some of which are cited above. But the most important difference here is between the two parties. Trump’s circus act isn’t possible in the Democratic Party. There are no celebrity candidates on the left – and certainly none capable of polling at the level Trump does. Democrats have had their share of bad candidates over the years, but they’re bad for different (and less offensive) reasons than GOP candidates. They’re bad for reasons related to their ideas or campaign platform or something politically relevant.

I do have to disagree with this point though. The Green Party seems to have the same problem. 

Only in the Republican Party do unserious candidates emerge as contenders. Only in the Republican Party are half-baked celebrities allowed to hijack the process to promote their private careers. Only among conservative Republicans are hucksters like Trump embraced.