What is emerging from the chaos of America’s ideological war between Democrats and Republicans is the emergence of a four-party system. Right now we have the establishment Republican Party, backed by wealthy corporate donors (the Mitt Romney’s and Mitch McConnells), the corporate Democrats led (still) by Hillary Clinton, who have turned to the $71 billion oligarch Mike Bloomberg to save them, the socialist-populists led by AOC and Bernie Sanders, and the nationalist-populists led by Donald Trump. These are four distinct factions; two of which are breaking away from the traditional Democrat-Republican two-party system.

This is all for the good, for the Dem-Rep system has completely broken down.

In this four-party system there can be leakage and coalitions between them. For example, Steve Bannon (former Trump campaign chief) suggests that an ideal ticket would be Trump as President and Bernie Sanders as Vice President. This ticket would have the advantage of including the two most dynamic representatives of the current political scene: the nationalist-populists and the socialist-populists. Although these two factions are diametrically opposed policy-wise, they contain almost all of the patriots in the US. By patriot I mean someone who wants the US to be as good as it can be, and who loves and supports their country and wants people to live successful lives.

The establishment-corporate factions are in it for themselves. These are the hedge-fund managers, the venture capitalists, the big banks and the billionaires and their sons and daughters who pimp the system for their own benefit without a care to what’s best for everyone. These are the people who got bailed out after 2008 to the tune of $3 trillion. The balance sheet of the Federal Reserve increased from about $800 billion in 2007 to over $4 trillion after all the “quantitative easing” and the infusion of cash from the Fed to bail out these elitists. These two factions are represented by the establishment Democrats and establishment Republicans.

Bernie and Trump represent the two most popular factions in the country. A Trump-Sanders ticket would be a great way to heal the deep political wounds that have been inflicted on the body politic over the past four years.

Could Trump and Bernie work together?

I don’t know but I think it’s worth a try.

Both Bernie and Trump want to withdraw troops from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. The opposition is what has been called the military-industrial complex, and the corporations who profit from war. Trump has necessarily had to build up the military in order to get the support needed within the military to end the endless wars. He and Bernie will be resolutely opposed by the Raytheons, the Booz-Allen Hamiltons, the Haliburtons,  the Mitres, the CIA and their regime-change foreign policy, and the war hawks in the Pentagon who profit from war. United, however, Bernie and Trump would be a formidable political force for peace.

Most of the rest of the world will support the withdrawal of US troops whole-heartedly. Those who don’t will identify themselves as warmongers.

The troops can come home and rebuild our infrastructure. It will be similar to FDR’s New Deal, where unemployed people were put to work building roads, bridges, and other infrastructure projects.

Despite their rhetoric both Trump and Bernie are patriots. They both want what is best for the country. Bernie would push for universal healthcare and free college education, which would be made possible by stopping the trillions misspent on endless war. Trump would get his infrastructure improvements and a focus on America first. Both Bernie and Trump have the same goals but don’t know it. I’d like to see a summit between the nationalist-populists and the socialist-populists to see if a deal could be worked out. The only enemies to such a deal are the warmongers, the haters, and the corporate elitists.

Delusional? Maybe. But we have to start somewhere. The populists on left and right should divorce themselves from the one-percenter elitist corporatists who couldn’t care less about the rest of us. The corporate Democrats are hard at work trying to steal the Democratic nomination from Bernie. Win or lose, I’d like to see Bernie and Trump combine forces. This way both populist factions will be united. Who would run on the other side? More than likely Hillary would run again, with VP Mike Bloomberg, representing the corporate elitists. A Hillary Clinton-Mike Bloomberg ticket would be the perfect representative for the corporatists.

Bloomberg has already spent almost $400 million on a nationwide blanket ad campaign. He’s worth $70 billion, a true American oligarch (Trump’s paltry $3.1 billion net worth, according to Forbes magazine, pales in comparison). He’s literally got billions to spend in an attempt to buy an election.

The 2020 election would be the populists versus the corporatists. I think Trump-Sanders would win in a landslide.