Who’s next? As the Biden campaign continues to spiral into oblivion, Democratic Party big wazoos are nervous, and for good reason. Bernie Sanders continues to roll, very probably toward a win in Nevada. And if dilettante Tom Steyer continues to pour money into self-promotion in South Carolina, he might enable a Bernie win there by siphoning enough votes away from Joe Biden to finally put the two-time loser out of our misery. But if that is a foreshadowing of the eventual result, it would mean a Democratic presidential campaign would be led by a man who is not even a Democrat, many of whose campaign personnel have views charitably described as historically uninformed. Some espouse gulags for conservatives or violence as the final solution to all political problems. None among them, including the candidate, seems to realize they are merely echoing the ideas of past monsters, whose policies brought nothing but death, destruction and misery to tens of millions of people across the globe. So those party leaders now wringing their hands over Bernie’s army are right to do so.

Michael Bennet has now left the race, and with him the last chance of a candidate with even a mite of common sense. Julian Castro, Deval Patrick, Andrew Yang, Corey Booker and Kamala Harris recently have departed, leaving the competition for the presidential candidate of the party of tolerance, feminism, diversity and openness a lot whiter, a bit more masculine and more geographically limited than before.

So who among the remaining will slay the dragon for the power brokers and moneymen running the party? Slow Joe Biden is auditioning for his new role on “The Walking Dead,” so in his absence the appointment to bell the cat will probably fall to one of the second-tier candidates — you know, people the party can use for something dirty and then discard if the heat gets turned up. But which? Amy Klobuchar, the senator from Minnesota with an invisible list of accomplishments in a field so undistinguished she jumped 10 points in the polls by having a good moment in a debate? Pete Buttigieg, the small-town mayor from Indiana whose city was troubled when he arrived and at least as troubled when he left? Elizabeth Warren, America’s favorite member of the Wannabe tribe?

Nope. It’s gotta be Mikey Bloomberg. Particularly if, as recently noted by the Drudge Report, he hooks up politically with Hillary Clinton. That would certainly give Democratic Party leaders the combination of political knavery, cupidity, corruption and disdain for the average American they seem to consider necessary to continue their campaign to establish crony capitalism as the national economic model, with themselves as the chief beneficiaries. There are only two problems: Michael Bloomberg and Hillary Clinton.

Bloomberg, whose money helped the Democrats buy Virginia’s statehouse last year, has given a pretty clear picture of what his interests are: firearm confiscation and healthy eating — or else. True, the former is a bit muddled by his hasty retreat from the “stop, question and frisk” policy he advocated as mayor of New York, so perhaps he doesn’t object to firearms in the possession of street thugs, only in the hands of ordinary citizens. This point needs some clarification. But he is pushing his longstanding antigun agenda across the country through pressure groups he created, through state legislatures his money has shaped, and through paid retainers like Virginia’s Gov. Ralph Northam, who was reminded two weeks ago that there is a limit to citizens’ patience with this claptrap.

In Bloomberg’s America, kale would be mandatory and sugar banned; if single-payer health care was ever forced down Americans’ throats, preexisting conditions would not lead to a denial of care but a previous history of Slurpee abuse might. Do not doubt, like all progressives, Bloomberg is an autocrat at heart. He lusts for power not as an end in itself, but so he can control our lives because, as one of the “better sort,” he is uniquely qualified to tell us all how to live. Paired with Clinton, whose disdain for ordinary Americans is legendary, Democrats would have a candidate pairing virtually irresistible to those among us who long to discard the tedious work of self-direction and liberty, assuming instead the mindlessness of serfdom. Call it “The Empire Strikes Back” of modern politics, and hope Democrats are smart enough to keep this nightmare at bay.

Me, I’m not sure they are.

Morgan Liddick’s column “On Your Right” publishes Tuesdays in the Summit Daily News. Liddick spent 27 years working for the U.S. Foreign Service, primarily living abroad. He also spent 12 years teaching U.S. history and Western civilization at community colleges in Colorado and Texas. He lived in Summit County as recently as 2015. Contact him at mcliddick@hotmail.com.