And the good evidence to back up that claim

Something strange has happened that I could never have predicted. Something that I would not have believed if you had told me about it a year ago. No, I’m not talking about the longshot candidacy of Bernie Sanders proving remarkably succesful. I’m also not talking about the fact that deeply insidious liar and maniac Ted Cruz has managed to win even a single supporter. I’m not even talking about the fact that Ben Carson, for whatever reason, is still in the race.

I’m talking about a weird man with an orange face climbing down from his New York highrise and turning an entire US political dynasty into a national laughing stock. I’m pretty sure that when Bush Senior was first elected to office, he did not image that the road of his family would end at the feet of a man with the most toupet-like piece of genuine hair the world has ever seen.

But it happened, and though my sense of empathy compelled me to want it to happen quickly, we unfortunately saw it take place across a span of months. The undoing of Jeb Bush was a slow, torturous process that happened an insult, a gaffe, a cringeworthy moment of awkwardness at a time. In many ways, Jeb Bush was the architect of his own demise, but without Donald Trump claiming 99% of the airtime in his own “Occupy the Mainstream Media” movement, there is no doubt that the pundits would have done their dutiful part to keep the Bush campaign on a respirator long enough for people to discover what an empty shell Marco Rubio is, and what a villain Ted Cruz has always been.

I mean, c’mon. Give him a break.

Alas for Jeb, his presidential aspirations are now as dead as the idea that you cannot accuse his brother of failing to keep the country safe in a Republican primary debate.

I watched this process unfold with fascination, and even back when I thought that Donald Trump would do something, anything, to shoot himself in the foot and lose his shot at the Republican nomination, a chill crept down my spine. It was a chill of realisation, of knowing that this man was a natural-born establishment wrecker. A person whose presence on the political scene was such a convention-denying enigma, that no one playing by the rules could ever have any hope of withstanding him. When it became evident that Jeb Bush wasn’t going anywhere, the Sanders campaign was still a decent way from taking off in earnest. It seemed as though in all likelihood, Hillary Clinton would be the next person to put herself on Donald Trump’s path to the White House.

At this point, I fully believe that Donald Trump is kryptonite to establishment politicians. That, barring some unprecedented conspiracy in which he is running only to utterly capitulate to Hillary Clinton in the general election, he will be the next POTUS if Clinton succeeds in grabbing the Democratic nomination. And I believe that the only way to keep the inauguration of 2017 from being a day we had never imagined possible, is for David to beat two Goliaths this cycle, not just one.

The best bet we have against Donald Trump is Bernie Sanders, and it’s honestly a pretty good one.

So what’s my argument?

Well, so far we’ve seen polling being pretty accurate. Iowa was predicted to be a close race for democrats, and it was. Cruz was deemed likely to take it due to past history with Santorum and Huckabee, and that turned out to be the case as well. New Hampshire was gonna be a landslide for Sanders, which happened, and the same was true for Trump.

Even the margin by which Trump won South Carolina was more or less spot on, and the tight race for democrats we were promised in Nevada materialised more or less as predicted, including the painful suspicion we all had that despite his history in civil rights activism, Sanders does not do well with black voters.

So given all these trends, when I see a chart like the one to the left, one that is compiled out of polling aggregates on RCP and HuffPo, I have little reason to be skeptical. True, we are a long way from November and a lot can change, but these matchups can and do act as meaningful wind vanes, giving us a sense of what kind of America people want to see primarily, and what kind of America they would be ok with settling for.

Turns out that people would rather see an independent at the helm than an ambassador for the wealthiest elite that human history has ever seen. This is why Real Estate Magnate beats Wall Street Stooge, and why a Working Class Hero actually is something to be when he’s matched up with the Magnate in question.

The difference is pretty staggering. According to these projections, Sanders would win in a landslide whereas Trump would inch out a victory against Clinton. Could she still come out on top? Maybe, but I’m not sure I like those odds. And truly, when it’s the epitome of a corporate democrat against a whimsical populist who lit the GOP establishment on fire, I’m not sure one is considerably better than the other anyway. Let’s just say that I rate the odds of a new war materialising about equally highly between Clinton and Trump. One can’t seem to get enough of destabilising Middle Eastern nations, the other seems insistent that America returns to Iraq to claim the oil.

Don’t believe the numbers I quoted above? As I am writing this article, new ones have been released. SurveyUSA tells us that in North Carolina, Sanders outperforms Clinton against leading Republican candidates. Clinton loses resoundingly against Rubio and Cruz, falls only two points short of Trump.

Elon University tells us that where Clinton ties to Cruz, Sanders wins. They lose about equally to Rubio. Sanders beats Trump better than Clinton does.

There is a trend here. The actual numbers vary from poll to poll and state to state. But is it stands, there is little reason to assume the chart I posted above is not largely reflective of the current political atmosphere.

That not good enough for you, though? Well, here’s another chart that should give Clinton supporters pause. Given her net favorability ratings, she is historically extremely unlikely to win a general election. And would you look at that? “Unelectable” Sanders is way up there, in the company of winners.

Maybe if you’re a politically unenaged voter, then the greased political machine may seem at first to be a surer bet against the GOP than the cranky old man. But you know what? This year the Democratic nominee isn’t running against the GOP, so you can forget about conventional wisdom. This year, the Republican Party is being sidelined, forced to watch helplessly as the vehicle it provides is hijacked and joyridden to Washington. It is the Donald Trump Show with an elephant emblem.

The general election is shaping up to be the ultimate episode of The Apprentice. And if it’s Hillary Clinton against Donald Trump, there’s only one thing the voters will tell her.

“You’re fired.”