It’s Trump! Unless . . .

So after all those “It Won’t Be Trump” posts — here and here, for example — it apparently will be Trump.  The choice of the Republican Party.

Leaving aside all the rest — can you imagine Ronald Reagan or Abraham Lincoln mocking the disabled? — there is a certain irony in this.

The leaders of the Republican Party clearly don’t want him; but he has successfully tapped into the frustration that tens of millions feel at the increasing difficulty of their lives . . . which (and herein the irony) has resulted from the strategy of those very same Republican leaders.

To wit: Refusing to create millions of good jobs revitalizing the nation’s crumbling infrastructure; holding down the minimum wage; busting unions; preventing federal-student-loan refinancing at today’s low rates; refusing Medicaid expansion; killing the immigration bill passed 68-32 in the Senate that economists widely agree would have boosted the economy for everyone . . . all the while slashing taxes on wealth and shifting political power to the wealthy.

Anyway, I was wrong.  Mr. Trump will almost surely win the nomination.

What’s more, the bettors over at PredictIt give him a 39% chance of being our next President.

The.

World.

Shudders.

But that brings me to the point: this short video from George Takei.

As a party officer, I’m neutral and, in any event, agree with Bernie Sanders: on their worst day, either of our two fine candidates would be 100 times better than the Republican alternative* . . .

. . . but for all my neutrality, watch what George Takei has to say to his fellow Bernie Sanders admirers, and pass it on.

If we all pull together, whether it winds up being for Hillary or for Bernie, Trump supporters will come up short.

And — in my view — they will be far the better off for having done so.

Just as — in my view — all but the wealthiest Bush supporters (and perhaps even most of them) would be far better off today if Bush had come up short.

Which he did, but don’t get me started.

*I’m aware many Republicans believe just the opposite — that four or eight more years like the last Clinton and Obama years would be a disaster, inevitably bringing yet more job growth (33 million net new private sector jobs created under Clinton/Obama, versus 747,000 under the last two Republican presidents), yet more deceleration of our National indebtedness, yet more emphasis on diplomacy over war, yet more efforts to improve health care, raise the minimum wage, encourage research and development, protect the environment, ban assault weapons — yet more efforts to advance equality and celebrate diversity and make it easier, not harder, to vote. I’m aware that many — somehow — believe these are things to be feared and avoided. And that if only Donald Trump were in charge, he’d get Osama Bin Laden dead or alive, and all the rest, because tough talk and impossible promises** are the secret sauce that solve complex problems.

**Then Governor Bush promised that “by far the vast majority” of the benefits of his giant tax giveaway-to-the-rich would “go to those at the bottom of the economic ladder.”