Populism, for all its limitations, does one thing well: it causes elites to freak the fuck out.

Bernie Sanders and his popularity alarm the 1 percent and its lackeys in the professional-managerial classes, so much that the latter are unable to be objective about him, or even cover his campaign fairly. His open class war — and working-class personal style — destabilize their sense of what is possible in American politics, making them so angry that they’re often reduced to comparing him to the other public figure they most love to hate. That’s Trump, of course.

The notion that Bernie Sanders is “Trumpian” is repeated often, even insistently, by the pundit class. When Sanders pointed out in August that he doesn’t get favorable coverage from the Washington Post, and that the paper is owned by Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon, CNN contended that Sanders sounded “eerily similar to Trump.”