…but I’m gonna say, anyway.

Much is being made of Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate and Senator Bernie Sanders’ (I, VT) so-called victory in the just concluded New Hampshire primary and the momentum he’s supposedly gained with that, coming as it does on the heels of his “near victory” in what the Iowa Democratic Party has been pleased to call a caucus earlier in the month.

[T]he campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders (I, VT) goes from strength to strength, drawing massive crowds and recording top-two finishes in the early-state contests.

I don’t agree. Sanders has gone from maybe-strength to should-have-had-strength, from a narrow “loss” in the Iowa fiasco (quotes of substitution because the Iowa thing almost doesn’t count) to very badly underperforming in New Hampshire, where he should have won by an order of magnitude larger margin than his narrow, nominal plurality victory.

Sanders is far from a loser, but if Buttigieg and Klobuchar can maintain, and especially if Warren, Biden, and/or Steyer can hang in, and/or if Michael Bloomberg’s buying strategy shows strength, the Progressive-Democrats may well go to a brokered convention.

There’s more.

If Sanders doesn’t come out of that convention with a first-ballot nomination, the hue and cry will be louder than it was in 2016, and many of his supporters may well sit out the general election again. If he doesn’t get the nomination after the first ballot, when Party elites get to vote—the brokering part having begun—the cries of foul will be deafening, likely justified, and Sanders’ supporters can be expected to sit out the general election en masse.

The uproar will be especially loud and Party internecine warfare will ensue in the unlikely, but far from not gonna happen, event Michael Bloomberg gets the brokered nomination. His economic views are virtually diametrically opposed to Sanders’, and Bloomberg will be unable to escape the charge—accurate or not—that he simply bought the brokerage.

It won’t only be Sanders’ supporters who sit out. Or defect.

And the move, from that civil war, to split away from Party and to form a third party will gain strength.