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Donald Trump is such a fraud it’s almost comical. His entire career is a shambolic series of unfortunately successful schemes which painfully highlight the power of effective marketing in the postmodern world. The list of instances in which Trump defrauded average working people is so commonly trod out it might not even be worth repeating, but whether it’s the fact he owns very few buildings but slaps his name in gold on many, or he commonly refuses to pay contractors, Trump University, Trump Airlines, the Trump football league, the list goes on and on.

Running for president was just another item on a long list of Trump schemes to hoodwink those around him to his benefit. That he branded himself a blue collar billionaire, whipped up a significant minority of the country into a racist fervor, and rode the demagogues wave to the White House, was all predictable looking at the arc of his career. And all an effort to solidify power for himself and people like him. He opened the door for billionaires to side with fascism to save the unequal and unsustainable status quo which has increasingly benefitted them at the expense of everybody else for decades. It’s either the last breath of the old Reaganite world of the 1980’s or the first steps of something far more insidious.

Either way, the worst part is, Bernie Sanders saw it coming and offered up modest social democracy in the face of a country increasingly bent on embracing the far right. Donald Trump represents everything Bernie Sanders has long stood against.

Trump embodies the greed of the billionaire class of which he is a part. And the true motivation of his political project is solidifying the power of capital by offering the far right a truce. This is nowhere more clearly evidenced than Trump’s rhetorical embrace of white nationalism coupled with an aggressive policy initiative hell bent on redistributing wealth from average Americans to millionaires and billionaires.

Whatever the venture, the outcome is the same. Donald Trump builds an edifice designed to suck in the unsuspecting with the type of grandeur evoked by words like tremendous, amazing, or fantastic. He branded himself as a shrewd real estate tycoon with properties all around the globe. In reality for every Trump owned property there are five which simply pay to lease his name. Yet because he has so successfully molded public perception of his name, it is synonymous with the gaudy faux-luxury that attracts the absolute worst kind of people to condos, apartments, and hotels all around the world.

The gold leaf, cheap marble, and decor so gaudy it’s almost reminiscent of pre-Revolution France isn’t real luxury, it’s a facade made to let the wealthy pretend they are super wealthy, while paying Trump handsomely for the pleasure. It’s all as fake as the idea that Trump would stand against hedge fund managers and provide healthcare for millions of people who voted for him with the genuine belief that he would protect medicare, medicaid, and even attempt to provide healthcare for all.

Trump hasn’t expanded healthcare. He hasn’t pushed for infrastructure spending. He’s done basically nothing for the working and middle class people he claimed to represent. However, he has consistently put the needs of capital first and has rubber stamped the typical Paul Ryanesque fiscal policy that aims to leave half of America’s grandmothers uninsured, eating oatmeal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. However, he built the edifice, he set the stage, he made the fight much bigger than just material well being. He’s a culture warrior, selling out America as a third of the country applauds him for doing so, because they truly believe they’ll be taken care of once the war is won. Once America is made great again, they’ll have the life America’s marketing materials promised them.

People genuinely believed they were staying in Trump owned hotels and apartments. They thought they were going to receive a world class education in real estate. Millions of viewers genuinely believed Trump was a savvy New York real estate tycoon when they watched the Apprentice each week. Dozens of contractors thought they’d get paid and finished their work counting on it. Time and time again Donald Trump wheels out the same strategy and it works every time, whether it’s a petty for profit college scam or a presidential campaign.

Trump’s siren song is powerful, his cult of personality is strong, and he probably wasn’t wrong when he said he could shoot someone and his supporters would stick with him. But no matter how powerful the feeling of having your fighter in the ring is, it will never beat actually delivering on the promise of a better life Trump rode into office.

Bernie Sanders has long articulated a message Donald Trump mirrored in many ways. Healthcare for all, taxing the super wealthy, reeling in American military excess, and rebuilding America’s infrastructure are all incredibly popular policy positions. They’re the bedrock of Bernie Sanders worldview and they were all prominent hollow promises offered by the Trump campaign. And that result is predictable, Bernie himself saw it coming.

Sanders has long attacked Trump for using sexism, racism, homophobia, and religious bigotry to “divide up the American people.” With the implicit understanding that a divided people can’t stand up to the billionaire class Bernie spends the vast majority of his speeches railing against. A divided people are stuck working longer hours for lower wages, trapped under mountains of student debt, stuck with massive medical bills, and insurance they can’t even use. Trump’s strategy brought fascism and capital together, because a symbiotic relationship is the only way either force can survive the historic currents we’re all being tossed through.

However, significant steps toward socialism or social democracy can split those two forces. It just needs to articulate a better material life for the disenfranchised would be fascist, and convince capital the very survival of any sort of privileged status they hold depends on a fundamental redistribution of economic and social power to the people they have withheld it from for so long. Donald Trump has continually gestured toward fascists, and he tossed capital every bone they desire. But that fundamental contradiction shows the biggest weakness in his political house of cards. People like better material conditions and they don’t like billionaires.

This is evidenced by American’s positions on basically every domestic policy issue. From medicare for all to free college and overwhelming majority of Americans support significant shifts to the left. Left leaning ballot initiatives do well even in red states, like medicaid expansion in Idaho or allowing felons the right to vote again in Florida. And that is Bernie’s biggest strength, he has tied himself to policy positions that by and large the American people find incredibly popular. Policy positions Donald Trump led people to believe he supported and ultimately those are the policies that must be used to defeat Donald Trump.

Bernie Sanders has long railed against the excesses of the billionaire class. He has clearly articulated how economic power has shifted up to the upper echelons of American society. And how this shift has corroded almost every aspect of the American experience for everybody else. American fascism might be an impossible avalanche Donald Trump has set in motion, or it’s a political movement with people who have real needs that can be co opted if those needs are met. Bernie Sanders wants to give those people the latter and I say America should let him.

Because the alternative is seeing how far the American right can go, and that’s the worst possible outcome for everybody.