Sanders and Trump

January 27^th 2016

A letter to the editor claims that the "angry" Bernie Sanders supporters will jump ship to join the "angry" supporters of Donald Trump if Sanders loses the democratic nomination to Hillary Clinton.  That's quite a stretch of the imagination given the huge gap in ideology and demographics between these two disparate groups. As reported in polls conducted by Real Clear Politics and NBC, Trump supporters are mainly white, older,  conservative, more religious  and less educated  that the younger, socially liberal followers of Sanders.  Sanders has a following that is searching with optimism for equity and equality in a liberal, accepting, and humane society  whilst those in the Trump camp are spurred on by  simplistic, racist, misogynistic viewpoints that reek of hatred and pessimism. 

Sanders and Clinton both have detailed plans to renew the progressive thrust that built the middle class and the prosperity that we experienced in the latter half of last century. Since then we have suffered incredible setbacks in earnings and opportunity as conservative ideology eroded those gains and career politicians set out to re-indenture us once again for the benefit of the few. In spite of all his braggadocio , if Trump does gain the White House he will end up applying  the same old approach that has hurt us every time a conservative has been in that position. Except this time we will have an even more reckless and feckless leader with his finger on the doomsday button.