So both candidates have some pluses and minuses. Sanders is a straight shooter and sparks huge enthusiasm, but he’s unusually left-wing for an American. Clinton is extremely well-known and has endured years in the spotlight, but is a fairly wooden campaigner who is constantly dogged by faux-scandal.

But their respective political disadvantages would be sanded down the moment one of them sealed the Democratic Party nomination. Activists and loyal Democrats would quickly realize that either Sanders or Clinton would be miles better than any Republican, and they would all fall in line. Wealthy liberals would remember that when it comes to domestic policy, Congress is where the action is — President Sanders, after all, couldn’t pass his large tax increases by himself.

For both Republicans and Democrats, the party is mostly what matters, politically speaking — not the identity of individual candidates. Positions are chosen and policies are made through a process involving a very large number of people, from the individual voters on up to representatives, senators, party elites, and eventually the presidential candidates. The difference between any two Democratic presidents is going to be relatively tiny compared to that between a Democrat and a Republican.