As an upbeat Howard Schultz tucked into lunch here recently he was having a good week because Democrats were having an awful one. The former Starbucks CEO, who is contemplating a plunge into politics, knows that his narrow path to the presidency as an independent depends on the Democratic Party becoming as offensive as the Republican Party has become. So, because his political prospects depend on the Democratic Party making normal people wince, he cannot be displeased by:

Numerous Democratic presidential candidates embracing the Green New Deal in the nanosecond before it became a punchline. Various candidates telling 180 million Americans to have stiff upper lips about losing their private health insurance under “Medicare for all.” One candidate, Sen. Kamala Harris of California, saying: There will be less paperwork when the government runs health care. Really. Another candidate (vegan Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey) saying that eating meat threatens the planet. New York and Virginia Democrats, expanding “reproductive rights” into infanticide, saying that infants who survive late-term abortions will be kept “comfortable” while they die of neglect. House Democrats swatting an anti-Semite in their caucus, but having to live with rising anti-Israel sentiment in their base. And remaining hostage to a ubiquitous colleague who became the face of (a) socialism and (b) freshman Democrats by capturing a safe seat after winning a primary with the grand total of 16,898 votes.

Democrats are spewing fury about Schultz, who they think might siphon off anti-Trump votes and become Ralph Nader redux. In 2000, when George W. Bush won the presidency by defeating Al Gore in Florida by 537 votes, Nader, running as the Green Party candidate, received 97,488 Florida votes, thereby probably defeating Gore.

Schultz is startled but undaunted by Democratic vituperation. He says that getting on the ballot in all 50 states will be no problem, and he sees a path to 270 electoral votes — assuming the Democratic nominee embodies a compound of high-octane progressivism and weirdness (see paragraph two above). A decision to run, which Schultz probably must make by early summer, long before the Democratic nominee will be known, will involve two wagers, the first of which is that Democrats will oblige him by ideological self-indulgence.