Do we vote for a ‘socialist?’

What happens if the Democratic Party winds up giving its presidential nomination this year to a person who has purposefully gone out of his way to identify himself as a socialist?

SANDERS: A loser? Or overwhelming winner?

Is that the one way in which we could wind up with a “President Donald Trump” come the November general election?

IT WAS A thought put forth to me on Wednesday, and one that has been rattling about in my brain ever since.

Personally, I think Trump’s persona would doom the GOP to defeat in this year’s election cycle.

While some people might find something amusing or enthralling about the idea of the New York real estate geek whose money attracts him a certain type of woman, I’d like to think the bulk of us in our society would see Donald for something short of a buffoon.

Someone whose persona would wind up bringing great shame to the United States of America amongst the world community.

THEN AGAIN, I have to wonder if Sanders has the ability to be equally ridiculous. Could this really be an election cycle in November between the nitwit segments of our society?

The people who are so displeased about their lives – perhaps because they’re the castoffs who can’t quite cut it in the current system that they’re willing to cast ballots for someone who wants to make them think someone else is causing their miserable lot in life.

Personally, I don’t think much of Trump or Sanders, the latter because I think his talk appeals purely to people who are too naïve to comprehend the real world. He really does remind me of the Paul Tsongas presidential bid of 1992 – which went nowhere.

Honestly, I’m not bothered about the fact he has used the “socialist” label to identify himself politically. Although I’m aware that most people really don’t have a clue as to what a socialist really is.

IT WOULD BE too easy for the ideologues to taint Sanders with the label in a way that he might not be able to win – no matter which Republican gets the nomination. The only way Bernie wins a general election is if the general public adopts a sense of sophistication and comprehension that, to be honest, we really don’t have.

Then again, Trump strikes me as a smug brat whose snottiness is such that a true majority will seek to vote against him.

Which is why I find it interesting to learn of a poll by Western Illinois University, that Forgottonia-based college in Macomb that claims Sanders will win the presidential election by an overwhelming Electoral College margin of support.

The pollsters say they think many Republicans will wind up being so dismayed by whomever the GOP nominates for president that they cast their votes in November for the Libertarian Party candidate as a form of protest.

WHICH PUTS A lot of states otherwise unreachable to the Democrats in play.

Now I don’t know how seriously I take this poll – even though the college put out a statement saying they’ve never been wrong in the past. It always seems some obscure poll comes out each election cycle that claims incredible accuracy to back the most nonsensical of concepts.

So I suppose this election cycle will wind up being remembered for the way a major candidate winds up being the kiss of death for his political party.

Will 2016 go in the books as the year a socialist turns Trump into a fully-legitimate government official (which he’d never be on his own)? Or will it be the year that a socialist eliminates the stigma of that label, similar to how 2008 proved wrong the idea that a black man could never achieve the highest office in the land?

  -30-