Only Sanders Defeats Trump the Old Fashioned Way: With Truth-telling, Character & Competence

http://www.nationofchange.org/news/2016/05/08/sanders-defeats-trump-old-fashioned-way-truth-telling-character-competence/

The only remaining primary suspense is whether Democrats will follow Republicans and nominate their least attractive candidate. And that presents this imperative conundrum: how to trash Trumpery, then ideally reduce it to a teachable, epic fiasco. Oddly enough, Trump’s steamroller against even more telling “losers” spotlights Bernie Sanders’ opportunity: here is the Democrats’ best moral, policy and Electoral College giant killer. Though preliminary polling also elevates Hillary over Trump, her campaign staggers, bogged down with a less than sterling campaigner still facing unresolved email legalities. Is that the killer app to stop a train wreck or impede Trump from adding the world’s most famous residence to his Vanity Fair palaces.

Countering Trump’s novelty entertainment hustle is daunting: his Star Wars tractor-beam and reality-show fixations with scene domination are so far immune to ordinary antidotes. You can’t out-blather or out-insult, out-badger or shout Trump down. Certainly the mild-mannered Sanders is not blessed with charismatic, star power “spontaneity.” Slick novelty often comes across as genuine until the veneer wears off, then the ungodly sordidness oozes up. Enter, Trump’s remarkable opposite.

All significant national polls favor Sanders, mirroring both DT’s astronomical negatives (the price for crude pandering to disgruntled yahoos) and Bernie’s valor: courage battling a political machine, high trustworthiness, and positive, collective goals informed by a humane vision. Trump instead dishes out theatrical, inflammatory fireworks, yet cheap shots that dominate primaries wither in general elections. Already for 2/3’s of the electorate, Sanders excels exactly where Trump is transparently fraudulent: honesty, coherence, knowledge and moral constancy.