You have no idea! Right now, you’re thinking, “Not another article where Frank complains about Paul Krugman complaining about Bernie Sanders!” But really: this is nonsense. There was a time in 2008 when I looked forward every morning to checking out Krugman’s blog. Friday’s were a special day because I knew he would have a column out. And I still greatly admire him. But when I clicked over to him on Monday I saw, Bernie, Hillary, Barack, and Change. That’s where he argues that Obama thinks Clinton is his true heir — as though that’s a compelling argument to the leftists in the party. “Hooray! Clinton will bring eight more years of us not knowing if we’ll get Medicare turned into a block grant!” It does not help that Krugman has spent the last eight years complaining about the same things.

But then I scrolled down and found, How to Make Donald Trump President. Let’s see how that goes, “Step 1: Democrats nominate Bernie Sanders.” Of course, as I discussed in The Complete ‘Bernie Sanders Can’t Win’ Liberal Pundit Article Kit, no one like Krugman will ever make a straight attack on Sanders. Krugman doesn’t “think Sanders is unelectable.” He just takes it as a given that electing Bernie Sanders would give the election to Trump. But that’s not quite fair — to Bernie Sanders supporters.

Krugman’s cunning plan to get Trump elected involves a second part: Michael Bloomberg enters the race and takes votes away from the Democrats, but somehow he takes none away from Republicans because “two-thirds of them currently support Trump, Cruz, or Carson.” Okay, but data — Remember data, Krugman?! — indicates that even among Republican supporters of Carson and Cruz, Trump is not popular. Among Republicans, Cruz has a 51% net approval rating. Carson has a 47% net approval. And Trump: 27%. So Trump still isn’t that popular even among the craziest of the Republican. But only Sanders would lose with a Bloomberg run.

And we know why that is: because it is the only way that Krugman can make his argument sound at all reasonable. Because otherwise, his post would have been six words long, “Step 1: Democrats nominate Bernie Sanders.” Because that’s all Krugman is saying. It amazes me that Krugman can be so smart, and yet write post after post where he shows himself to be stupid — or at least completely out of his depth. Under ordinary circumstances, I know that Krugman would mention the fact that the economy trumps all other aspects in an election. If Krugman weren’t so emotionally attached to Clinton, he could have come up with the actually reasonable — fact and researched based — description of How To Make Donald Trump President:

1. Republicans nominate Donald Trump.
2. The economy goes into recession.
3. “Trump wins a yuuuuge victory.”

Krugman really should be worried about the economy going to hell and about how the Federal Reserve is doing exactly the opposite of what it should be doing. But instead, every day is a day to claim that Bernie Sanders is going to put a Republican in the White House. As long as Krugman is suffering from this brain fever, I think we can make a game of it. It’s called The Paul Krugman Bernie Sanders Giving Game. The rules are simple:

You can set your own level of giving. You’ve got to be careful, though. Because I suspect that Krugman is going to say a lot more stupid things about Bernie Sanders. And if Sanders wins in Iowa, you might be required to donate to Sanders several times a day.

Of course, it really shouldn’t work this way. It’s Krugman who should have to provide the money. After all, he’s the one saying stupid things that show none of the depth of thought that have made him a respected pundit. But I’m afraid, we aren’t going to get that. So we’ll just have to pay ourselves.

Afterword: If Paul Krugman Is Ill

In case Paul Krugman is suffering from undiagnosed early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, then I am sorry. But for his benefit and that of the nation, he should not be writing in public. This doesn’t seem to be the case however. His articles about economics are still as good as ever.

Over the last few days, I’ve written two articles about liberal attacks on Bernie Sanders. First, there was, Erik Loomis Is Wrong About Sanders and Politics. And then there was my not so serious, The Complete ‘Bernie Sanders Can’t Win’ Liberal Pundit Article Kit. My point has not been that liberals are attacking Sanders. That’s a given. There are perfectly acceptable reasons that one might not want to support Sanders. But the arguments have been bad — from Loomis’ “liberals will be disappointed like they were with Obama” to Krugman’s argument that Sanders is campaigning too much like Obama.

I was pleased to see Monday morning that Brian Beutler is thinking the same things I am, Is Nominating Bernie Sanders a Worthwhile Gamble? Because that’s the question. Back in September, I wrote an article with an almost identical title, What Risk Is Bernie Sanders Worth? My point was that Sanders was worth some risk but not a lot of risk. But those were the days when the liberal establishment wasn’t afraid of Sanders. So they didn’t care. But now that it looks like Sanders is an actual threat, the liberal establishment’s answer is not only that Sanders is worth absolutely no risk, but also that Clinton represents no risk whatsoever.

Beutler’s argument is summed up in his subtitle, “Hillary Clinton’s supporters have yet to make a persuasive case that Sanders is too great a risk.” And that is quite right. In all the writing about the subject, the unstated assumption is that Clinton — the ultimate Wall Street insider — will easily destroy Donald Trump — the ultimate populist demagogue. On that one issue, I think that Sanders has a distinct advantage. But you would never know that from the garbage that is coming out of the “practical” wing of the party.

The Case For Bernie Sanders

Beutler made one of the stronger practical cases for Sanders. It goes back to something that I was complaining about for years under Obama. And it is, interestingly, something that Obama learned. But Clinton has regressed on it:

He went on to note that although the Clinton camp wants to paint Sanders as a pie-in-the-sky idealist, “He’s been a relatively effective and pragmatic legislator.” What’s more, “This is Sanders’s strongest non-idealized appeal to progressives: he would appoint tougher regulators and conduct a more cautious, dovish foreign policy than Clinton.” It may be true that Clinton knows everyone, but what does it matter if she turns to Goldman Sachs to help regulate Wall Street? And finally, “But in a party that has become increasingly dovish and alarmed by increasing concentrations of income and wealth, he would have a strong claim to being a safer bet than Clinton — if he were to ever push the point.”

The Case Against Bernie Sanders

I think there is a strong case against Sanders. And it is a practical one. Sadly, it is not the practical case that Clinton supporters suppose. It is the case that Glenn Greenwald touched on in a recent article, The Seven Stages of Establishment Backlash: Corbyn/Sanders Edition. I have been amazed that so many Labour Party leaders seem to think that it is better to destroy their party than to support Jeremy Corbyn. And given the increasingly hysterical claims that we’ve heard from Clinton surrogates, I fear we would see the same thing here if Sanders won the nomination.

This makes me angry and not at all inclined to switch to the Clinton camp. If a Sander nomination destroys the party, it won’t be because people like me voted for him, but because party elites just couldn’t deal with our preferences. But apart from that, I think Clinton is a marginally stronger general election candidate than Sanders. The question is how big that margin is. Thus far, I’m not hearing much in terms of arguments about that — probably because it is really hard to say.

Krugman, Krugman, Krugman. Saturday morning, Paul Krugman wrote, Wonks and Minions. We liberal true believers are being mean to him and other people for all their ridiculous anti-Sanders articles. I have little doubt that many Sanders supporters are just as silly as supporters of every other candidate and go on tilt when they read negative things about their candidates. But this is a straw man. Who cares that Sanders’ supporters are angry? Maybe it is time for Krugman and company to look at why they are angry.

Yesterday, I wrote The Complete ‘Bernie Sanders Can’t Win’ Liberal Pundit Article Kit. And my point was not that it is wrong to complain about Sanders. Have at it! Attack Sanders all you want. Just don’t sit around and write more of these articles about how you love his policies but that it would be a big mistake to vote for him. I have policy differences with Sanders myself. I simply have bigger policy differences with Clinton. None of them are that big a deal.

But Krugman mentioned that Mike Konczal (who I really like) is getting some grief about saying that Sanders’ focus on Glass-Steagall and too-big-to-fail banks is all wrong. I agree! As everyone should know, the repeal of Glass-Steagall did not cause the 2008 financial crisis. Then again, Sanders has not been talking about just reinstating Glass-Steagall; he’s been talking about a Glass-Steagall for the 21st century. Truthfully, I don’t much care. But there are some thing that I care about very much.

Let’s just look at two things very quickly. First, there is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). I hate it. I think it is a very bad thing. There is no doubt that it would die under a Sanders administration and almost no doubt that Clinton would sign it. Then there is the financial transaction tax that Sanders is a big supporter of. Clinton was forced to propose something similar, a high frequency trading tax, which Dean Baker says is unworkable and is regardless, not the same thing. That’s Clinton all over: protecting Wall Street.

But somehow, we hear liberals complaining about Glass-Steagall. Well, this is a tactic I’ve seen elsewhere — you know, on places like Fox News. For example, have you been hearing all the big news about Hillary Clinton’s email scandal? Most people probably think that’s a thing of the past. But if you’ve been watching Fox News for the last week, you’ve seen little else.

Well, that’s what we are seeing in these recent attacks on Sanders. Are we just going to avoid Clinton’s negatives now? I think it really comes down to the electability issue. And I’m fine with that. I have my own concerns. But let’s make that argument. Let’s not make the argument that Sanders’ policies are bad. This article is sort of the other side of yesterday’s article. There you have people saying, “I love Sanders, but he can’t win.” The problem there is that there is no argument that he can’t win — just the proclamation. And here we have cherry picking of issues.

There is another issue there I tend to side with Hillary Clinton’s rhetoric. I think we need to gradually expand Obamacare to the point where we have universal single-payer health insurance. But are we going to get there via Hillary Clinton? Her pragmatic approach might do it, but it is more likely that it will end in things like getting rid of the taxes on premium private plans and medical devices — things that are part of a pragmatic approach that has already resulted in Obamacare being less secure.

I doubt I would make a big deal of all this liberal Bernie Sanders sniping. But it all came together. As long as Sanders was getting 30% or less nationally, everyone was fine. But now that he’s sitting at 40%, there is a sudden freak out. And it is a freak out from people who have generally been very favorably inclined toward Sanders. Krugman’s sudden attacks on Sanders don’t surprise me. I’ve long said that he was quite a lot more conservative than I am. But it bugs me that he isn’t being honest about what he really thinks.

And now, he’s whining about being attacked from the left. Oh, I know: it isn’t him. He’s just defending the feelings of Mike Konczal. But as far as I remember: Konczal is for a financial transaction tax. Krugman is for one. But it is only Dean Baker who has attacked Clinton on the matter. I don’t expect Sanders to win the nomination. I’m not certain that he should win the nomination. Maybe Clinton really is the better choice. But that is the case that has to be made. And Krugman can whine all he wants. But there are real reasons to complain about his recent anti-Sanders writing.