Will Donald Trump be the Republican Bernie Sanders?

Donald Trump won a decisive electoral vote but he’s a couple hundred thousand behind in the popular vote. So a tremendous accomplishment, but not exactly a mandate.

There is a way, however, that he might be able to get a mandate, and that is by confounding his critics. By doing something they don’t expect.

Related: ‘He’ll never win’ they said when Trump announced candidacy

And maybe that’s what he has in mind. It didn’t get a lot of attention, but last summer at a news conference he said that he would like to raise the federal minimum wage to at least $10.

I was advised by a Republican colleague that it’s one of the first promises he intends to keep. Why? Because it helps the working class voters who put him into office. Since 2009, Republicans in Congress have blocked a federal wage increase, but Trump could probably push it through.

That’s number one. Number two: He’s going to replace Obamacare.

Under his health care plan, the option for people who can’t afford insurance once the subsidies go away is Medicaid. That’s a poverty program. A middle-class voter might not feel too good about being a Medicaid patient, but suppose he calls it a “public option.”

Well, now you have a higher minimum wage, a public option for health care, and, of course, Trump’s opposition to unfair trade treaties – he’s the Republican Bernie Sanders. Which is not so crazy!

I remember talking to voters in New Hampshire who were on the fence not between Trump and Clinton, but Trump and Sanders.

So Trump should channel Bernie Sanders! It would make him a hero! Plus, he already has the accent.

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