The 2016 election is going to be the most epicly American election in our country’s history, with all that this implies. You don’t have to be a psychic to predict that this one will be a barnstormer of high weirdness, goofy drama and unexpected twists and turns. It’ll blow 2008 out of the water and I think it’s already far surpassed 2012, which to be fair had its moments, too, but no Donald Trump or Sarah Palin.

And as if to conveniently illustrate my point of how volatile things have already gotten, here is some new polling courtesy of CNN (by way of AlterNet) that shows self-described Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders out-polling all three of the Republican Party’s major candidates (although he’s more or less tied with Jeb Bush).

SANDERS: 48%
BUSH: 47%

SANDERS: 48%
WALKER: 42%

SANDERS: 59%
TRUMP: 38%

If you limit the poll sample to just registered voters, Bush defeats Sanders by a single point.

This is nothing short of extraordinary news. This is one political story that isn’t about Donald Trump being at the top of the GOP field, it’s about the grumpy Socialist Senator from Vermont WHO CAN BEAT HIM IN A HEAD TO HEAD MATCH-UP.

I look at it this way: If, when all is said and done, it’s Hillary Clinton who is running against the eventual Republican nominee, hey, I will have no problem pulling the lever for her, because I would never vote for a Republican in a million years. But I am sure as shit going to be voting for Bernie Sanders in the primary, which is the vote—in Hillary Clinton’s case—that will count the most.

I strongly believe that either one of them, Sanders or Clinton, could and would, can and will, beat whoever the GOP nominates and polling backs that expectation up. But I’ve sent Bernie money twice and I just don’t think I’d ever send Hillary Clinton a single dime. I don’t actively dislike her, don’t get me wrong, but Bernie Sanders? He’s nothing less than a great American hero in my eyes.

Just sayin’... it’s going to get weird. Good weird. Deeply weird. Believe it.