For years now, David Brooks has been encouraging his readers to view him as the thinking person’s conservative. That is what makes his column last Sunday, “No, not Sanders, not ever,” March 4, page C4, in which he swears he will not vote for either Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders so hard to fathom.

Brooks seems to view Sanders as some kind of left-wing bogey man who will take America down the road traveled By Stalin and Fidel Castro to authoritarian ruin, while ignoring the fact that Sanders’ proposals, universal health care, a higher minimum wage, and higher marginal taxes on the ultra wealthy, among others, are very much in the vein of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and even John F. Kennedy, and are, when their identification with Sanders is left out, quite popular with voters in general.

Brooks presents us with an array of hypothetical horribles that a vote for Sanders maybe, possibly, might bring, while ignoring the actual damage that Trump's programs have wrought. No candidate is perfect, and anyone who wins the Democratic nomination will have to defend his/her proposals, but it's way to early in the process for Brooks to reveal that he wouldn't know a socialist unless one jammed a Hammer and Sickle up his nose while singing "The Internationale".

David Varner, Granby