Trumping the Field

THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL campaign, we hope, will be exactly what America needs: a riveting, entertaining, exciting, tantalizing, profitable, free- for-all discussion about the United States of America, and what to do with it. Both wings of the party of property have an impressive collection of interesting candidates, and soon there should be more. Only Bernie Sanders doesn't seem to belong in the groups, and for precisely that reason he is the best choice, for an overwhelming majority of the American people. If you're poor, or you're a worker, and most of us are, aren't we? - vote Bernie. Any of the other three demos would be far preferable to any of the legions of repubs, if you're poor, or you're a worker. The best republican candidates are, in no particular order: Jeb Bush, Rand Paul, and Donald Trump. Jeb is open minded, and doesn't regard liberals as evil, stupid, or delusional. he seems wiling to listen to other people, and to step outside the conservative box, policy-wise. Rand Paul deserves great credit for his opposition to the American security-surveillance state, at a time when most other republican candidates seem determine to trade a little liberty for a little security, thus revealing them to deserve neither. The Donald is amazing. Did he, or did he not go bankrupt four times? (that might be a deal breaker for me). In America, it gets hard trying to distinguish fantasy from reality. Trump might be able to gather some support among liberals and independents, without alienating quite all of the conservatives. Unless I'm dreaming, he supports increasing the minimum wage, single payer public health insurance, taxes on corporations and the wealthy, and humane treatment of illegal alien human beings. Simultaneously, he has a vigorous and aggressive pro business job creation agenda, with a nice and healthy prosperous sound to it. He seems to think that we ought to be doing something to stop climate change, unlike his republican conservative colleagues. Trump might easily be accused of being a liberal, because he is independent, open-minded, and oriented towards results rather than image or ideological consistency. We need more of that in American politics.