go further than his current stated policy goals, because otherwise, I can't figure out why he insists on self-branding as a socialist. Beyond the people who are already sold on him, it's an electoral headwind. If Trump is bringing us the slow creep of autocracy (I certainly believe he is, whereby he slowly breaks down public resistance, to the point that they stop looking at specific offenses against the constitution, and just act sick of the complaints about him. He has already IMO desensitized the country to much of his shit), I think Bern probably wants to do the same, but on the extreme socialist left.

I flat out can't get comfortable with RQ's argument that I shouldn't worry, no way Congress will let Bern get away with it. 4 years ago I'd have said the same about Trump. But he has taken over the repub party to the point that they will not stand up to him at all. Bern is not the same as Trump, that's true, but one can see a rabid Bern base holding "primarying" over the heads of uncooperative legislators.

In a deep blue state like NY, as long as I am still sure it is deep blue (I think it will be), I think the best use of my vote will be third party, a vote against populism. What if I were in Florida or even NJ, which I see as more likely to vote repub than NY? I think I would choose the Bern as the lesser evil. And both are really "evil" IMO. The Constitution, the checks and balances among the three branches, the check from an independent media, a judiciary dept that does not act like the personal political tool of the president, an exec branch that takes its own intel services seriously - these things are the foundation on which the economy is built. Blow up the foundation, and the fiscal left-ness or right-ness of the president makes no difference. I think job 1 is to save the foundation. The economy can be brought back to the center far more easily than the foundations of our representative republic can be rebuilt once they're blown up.

And if I shouldn't take for granted that Congress will effectively check the wackiest of Bern's policies, I sure as hell shouldn't take anything about Trump for granted. As we saw in 2008, the unimaginable can in fact happen.