But what if, as seems increasingly likely, Trump goes to the Republican convention with the largest number of delegates but not an absolute majority, and then at a brokered convention, party leaders install an alternative candidate — either Ted Cruz or perhaps a more “acceptable” candidate? Trump has already warned that he might in that case run as an independent or third party candidate — something he clearly has the support and the money to do.

At that point we’d have a three-way race between Clinton, a Republican and Trump. What would Sanders do then? His backers, who have already provided his campaign with over $140 million in small donations and seem to be a bottomless well of support, will be calling for him to run too. Perhaps he would. If it came to that, perhaps the Green Party should consider the bold idea of making him its standard bearer — a move that would assure his already high-flying campaign a place on the ballot in virtually every state, and that would simultaneously suddenly catapult the Green Party from an election footnote capable of winning a percent or two of votes to a major-league party vying for the top prize (and maybe some seats in Congress into the bargain).

Maybe that’s a fantasy, but it’s a beautiful one, entailing as it would the decimation of the two massively corrupt parties that have conspired to stymie political change in the US for generations. SNIP