Mass media are hyperventilating over Bernie. Good. Let the infighting rage on.

Lately, however, many Democrats and some conservatives close to me have started to assume that Bernie will win the nomination. Caught up in the moment, some go so far as to say he may even defeat President Trump. What evidence do they offer to support such claims? Let's assess them soberly.

"But, no one has ever won the first three primaries!"

True. Neither has Bernie. No trustworthy person knows the actual results from the fiasco that was the Corn State caucus. It stands to reason that Sanders won--he allegedly won the popular vote, despite gaining six delegates to Pete Buttigieg's seven, but the reality is that nothing has been certified.

This is the weakest plank of my rebuttal, but it bears stating: Iowa has not been certified, and it stands as a permanent scar on both our electoral process and the corrupt DNC. At any rate, three wins? So what? Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada are outliers in several demographic categories, from race (white, whiter, very dark, respectively) to total population (30th, 41st, 33rd).

Wake me on Super Tuesday.

"He's An Alpha!"

This one really makes me laugh. The only way Bernard Sanders is an alpha male is when he's in a room full of vape-sucking, man-purse-shouldering fellas. He's a simpy activist. His jaw hangs open. He has the physical bearing of Abe Simpson. He's 78 going on 90. Yelling doesn't make someone an alpha. Presence does. Bernie has the presence of a brown wool bathrobe with mothballs in the pockets.

Chatting up Bloomberg about multiple stent procedures cancels Bernie's alpha card, not that he ever carried one. No, heart disease doesn't make you a wimp, but it's a weak move to play Physical Malady Bingo on the debate stage with your septuagenarian cohort.

Reminder: America has momentarily forgotten that any serious illness between now and June would ruin Bernie's chances. No amount of AOC defibrillation will save Bernie a second time.

Any mishap that takes him off the campaign trail, even for a few days, such as the flu, would effectively cancel Bernie. That's how tenuous his hold is on the top spot.

"But he's the frontrunner, and leading most of the state polls!"

First, Bernie isn't a natural frontrunner. His greatest hits are all when punching up, not down. He's only in the lead due to the embarrassingly weak field. To wit: the intersectional, tolerant, diverse Democrat field is down to:

• a racist, sexist, out-of-touch, old white male billionaire,
• a rich white woman who claimed to be an Indian to boost her career,
• a geriatric stutterer with two aneurysms, a fondling problem, and a warehouse of skeletons,
• a former spy and current mayor of a violent U.S. city who is only relevant because he's gay, and,
• a soccer mom.

Leading that field isn't a win, it's a gold star on a potty training chart: congrats, Bernie, you didn't sh*t your Depends this week.

As for the polls? This is Bernie's second straight presidential campaign and millionth televised debate. Larry David has gently aped him on SNL for years. Folks know Bernie as a kind old man. Bloomberg, still unknown to large swaths of the voting public, hasn't even been on a ballot yet. Contrary to public desire, he isn't going away. Still others wait in the wings, including the world record holder for Most Friends Who Have Committed Suicide.

"All Dems will vote for Bernie in November!"

No they won't. Just stop it. Take a few breaths. Bernie--with his open borders and a welfare state, with his equal rights for illegal aliens, with his defense of Fidel Castro's Required Reading Hour, with his unknown price tag on Medicare For All and trillions-per-year Green New Deal is a multi-box-checking nonstarter to all classical liberals, many Democrats, and even more Independents.

The centrists may not vote Trump, but they aren't pulling the lever for their own financial ruin.

Bernie is to the left of Lenin. He guarantees low Democratic turnout.

"The Party will be forced to embrace him!"

No they won't. Corporate kingmakers put Tom Perez in place at the DNC specifically to ensure that Sanders doesn't get the nomination. They aren't going to roll over due to the latest surge in a volatile field. Sanders is the flavor of the week, maybe the month. Remember when everyone was resigned to Bloomberg as the nominee? And Buttigieg before him? And Biden before that? And Kamala before that?

Corporate America will never embrace Bernie. Therefore, the media (corporate America's mouthpiece) will never embrace Bernie. While they've been spastic and panicky about it this week (see tweet above), they'll figure out a way to steer sheep away from the Sanders flock. It's literally their job. They have three months, which is a lot of news cycles.

"That's what they said about Trump in 2016! This is the same thing, but for Dems!"

This might be my favorite line. It has a creepy ring of truth to it--after all, both Trump and Sanders are populists. The media hates both men. Followers of both are unusually inspired.

But that's where it ends. Trump ran on border security, something many Americans of all political stripes have wanted for decades. Trump ran on draining the corrupt DC swamp, something virtually all Americans desire. Trump ran on America First, which, while not as universally popular as his other planks, is not a purely partisan issue, and appeals to common sense. And Trump ran on straight talk, not politically correct nonsense, something many Americans have yearned for since the early nineties.

Bernie is running on a high school class president platform: free stuff, somehow. Free medicare, free tuition, and lots of spending on the environment. He's also running on open borders. Once moderate Democrats come to grips with how entirely the economy and their neighborhoods would be made unrecognizable under Sanders, the swooning will end. "New Bernie fans" will look back on this lunacy the way you remember a bad first date: I can't believe I almost fell for a communist!

Tune in Tuesday

All that said, be sure to watch the debate in South Carolina tomorrow night (8pm EST on CBS). Five desperate politicians are going to attack Sanders with everything but actual hammers and sickles. If you watched last week's episode, you know that Sanders grows angry when challenged repeatedly, turning from red to nearly purple.

If he survives that, plus the spending frenzy of Mike "Full Monty Burns" Bloomberg on Super Tuesday, then we can start to talk about the nomination.

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