The hysterical responses to declarations of #NeverBernie demonstrate that the Left is seeing Heffalumps. Trump is bad, but not so bad that Bernie should be a viable option.

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Justin’s recent proclamation that he will never support Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump seems to have begun a conversation here at The Liberty Hawk. Both Scott and Richard have written excellent pieces on either side of the question. I won’t pile on Richard, but I find myself more on team #NeverBernie.

One of the most common themes in discussions pushing #VoteBlueNoMatterWho is this ridiculous idea that Donald Trump is a dictator and that our democracy has already fallen to the fascists. If we lived in a dictatorship, you would not be reading opinion pieces on this site calling Donald Trump a petty, incompetent moron.

China banned discussion of Winnie-the-Pooh in public because of a meme pointing out visual similarities between President Xi Jinping and the beloved character from A. A. Milne. Donald Trump the Tyrant has become the Heffalump of the American Left. I have a secret about the Hefffalump – don’t tell my kids – it isn’t real.

The fact that there is going to be an election in November, and we can post opposition to the administration without any reasonable fear of reprisal, is evidence enough that our Republic and personal freedoms are very much intact. Early in the Trump administration, journalists fretted about their safety on Twitter safely in their own homes using their real names on public accounts. At the same time, dissidents in Iran and China must post under pseudonyms – sometimes even living away from home. The First Amendment is alive and well in the United States.

We have a functional system of checks and balances (perhaps despite our best efforts). It doesn’t function as well as it should – e.g., the only reason many members of Congress have protested Presidential War Powers is that the other guy uses them too – but it functions. In the last week, the Supreme Court ruled that it is not the place of the Judiciary to interfere in international incidents related to national security. Both the minority and majority opinions said there ought to be a law, but the majority came clearly down on the side that Congress should be the one to write that law.

The day Donald Trump forces a Supreme Court Justice to change their vote on the constitutionality of legislation or his actions through threats of packing the Court or worse is the day I will begin being worried about authoritarianism in America under Trump. We are not particularly near that day.

In fact, Senate Democrats wrote an amicus to the Court this term, which amounted to little more than “nice little separation of powers you got here, be a shame if something were to happen to it.” Several leading Democrats (fortunately, none of the leading candidates for President) have endorsed court-packing – a scheme Roosevelt threatened to use to get The New Deal through the Supreme Court. There are greater threats to our Republic than a bumbling septuagenarian with an ego problem. Donald Trump is not a good President, but he isn’t in the same category as Franklin D. Roosevelt or Woodrow Wilson.

I have written in this space before on the importance of voting your conscience and rejecting the duopoly that partisans expect us to support in the elections. We should adhere to our principles and vote our conscience. If that means leaving the President slot blank or voting for the Libertarian or other minor party candidate, then that is far preferable to voting for a socialist who has shown no interest in working with people who don’t agree with him on 100% of his radical policy proposals.

Bernie Sanders has been in Congress for decades. He has not a single legislative accomplishment of any substance under his name. I can understand having principles and radical ideals. Still, the fact that no one in Congress has wanted to work with him to accomplish even modest goals says quite a bit about his views of the legislature and his colleagues.

I worry that Bernie Sanders will expand the role of the Executive in ways that would make FDR seem like a Federalist. Senator Sanders has not demonstrated an affinity towards the separation of powers or working with the opposition to accomplish anything.

Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders – and their supporters – are not that different in disposition. Both appeal to emotion and make radical promises (perhaps Trump, at least, knows he can never fulfill those promises). Although I certainly could not vote for Donald Trump, I am not sure I could stomach a President Bernie Sanders.

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