Any 2016 speculation before the primaries is pretty much a waste of energy. If Bernie loses to Hillary in Iowa and Hew Hampshire, he’s pretty much finished, baring some major scandal or gaffe for Hillary. The GOP field is more diverse, with many candidates neck-and-neck, making it harder to determine a front-runner from the first few primaries, but if Jeb wins the first two by a comfortable margin, it’s pretty safe to conclude he will be the nominee.
A misconception is that the GOP is trying to suppress certain candidates, but this is false.
People choose the nominee through the nominating process of primaries and caucuses, not through some secretive cabal that convenes by a pyre in a castle to anoint the ‘chosen one’. When Trump loses (which he most certainty will) it won’t be because the GOP ‘establishment’ was keeping him down, but because he wasn’t able to get enough delegates to win the convention. What happens is these ‘maverick’ candidates tend to screw up, as we saw in 2012 with Herman Cain and Rick Perry, or they simply don’t get enough votes in the primaries. Yea, these moderates may suck, but they keep winning where it counts (the primaries). The media creates this narrative that people are tired of ‘politics as usual’, yet when people go to the voting booth they vote for the usual. Donald Trump, for all his chest-thumping, will probably pullout before the deadline, as he has always done in the past, using his brief candidacy as just another PR stunt. In the unlikely event he files the necessary financial disclosure forms, for many possible reasons (inexperience, gaffes, scandal), Trump will simply fail to win any primaries despite all the hype he’s generating now, while candidates that are boring but reliable pull ahead, analogous to the Tortoise and the Hare fable. ‘Boring’ wins the nomination, going as far as H.W. Bush in 1988. Candidates that are too ‘extreme’ or candidates that are not career politicians tend to fare poorly in GOP presidential primaries. That’s just the way it is.
Some on the right say the millennials are hopelessly infatuated with Sanders, much in the same way they were with Obama, but on Reddit, especially on viral Imgur posts of Sanders quotes, there are a sizable number of dissenters, so it’s not like every millennial is in the tank for Sanders. Many millennials, especially some of the smarter ones, know that Sanders is promising policy that is not only economically destructive, but also unconstitutional (especially the part about wealth confiscation). Much like Obama, Sanders appeals to the ignorance of the masses for votes. Some liken Sanders to a liberal Ron Paul, in which case I agree: they both advocate wealth destroying policy.
Ron Paul = destroy your wealth by ending fed/raising rates and making stock market & real estate prices fall
Sanders = destroy your wealth through taxes and regulation
That’s why moderates tend to win and why I (and many others) don’t want to see our hard-earned wealth destroyed by impulsive populists who have nothing to lose if everything falls apart under their destructive leadership.
In the event Sanders becomes president, it will reflect a major failing of America’s system of government and a major argument for neo-reaction, or some sort of alternative to the system we have now (such as requiring a minimum personal ‘net worth’ and or a certain threshold of IQ to vote), as if Obama wasn’t reason enough for such an overhaul. Checks and balances only goes so far.
Related: Some Thoughts on the 2016 Campaign