The Election of 2016... or is this The Election of 1860 Revisited?

I awoke from sleep this morning with no conscious recollection of having a dream yet my mind was reviewing what I knew of the Presidential election of 1860 and how the Democratic Party was split into two opposing factions, between Douglas in the North and Breckinridge in the South, giving the White House to the Republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln.  It devolved into secession of the Southern States and then four years of Civil war...

Now, in 2016, the Democratic Party appears bitterly divided between Hillary Clinton, an establishment candidate, who is the wife of two-term U.S. President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State under current President Barak Obama, and Bernie Sanders, the Independent Senator from Vermont who describes himself as a Democratic Socialist, and is running as a Democrat in the primaries under what he says is a rigged political system.

Meanwhile Donald Trump, the outspoken and obtuse Republican candidate, is now the only one left and is considered the presumptive nominee. Do I see any parallels here with 1860? Yes I do! What is going to happen at the Democratic National Convention come July in Philadelphia? Pundits say Bernie Sanders will "fall into line" behind Hillary Clinton and unify the party... because the alternative right now is really unthinkable: Donald Trump in the White House with his divisive rhetoric and threat to build a wall between the United States and Mexico to stem the tide of illegal immigration from south of the border! If "the Donald" is our next President, then all bets are off and history could be repeating itself...

That only happens IF the Democrats don't unify behind their chosen nominee. If Bernie is not able to "pull a White Rabbit out of a tall silk top hat" and lead his party to victory over Donald Trump and the Republicans, I have doubts that Hillary Clinton has the momentum in her campaign to do this, yet she has the completed work of the United States Supreme Court with their Citizens United decision watching her back, so who knows? I would rather see a multitude of ordinary people making campaign contributions for a true progressive candidate, such as Bernie Sanders, put a President in the White House than let the 1% with their Super-Pac deep pockets determine the outcome of this election. I really do wonder if the dream I had last night was telling me something about how 1860 relates to 2016 ~ JDHWB-R