I am baffled as to why U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders even is in the conversation about whether he should run for the 2020 Democratic Party presidential nomination.

I want to make two quick points: He ran for the 2016 party nomination and lost it to Hillary Rodham Clinton. His platform this time around seems to mirror the mantra he recited in 2016 — which is that too few people control too much wealth. This self-proclaimed “democratic socialist” wants to redistribute the wealth to more of us. I guess I’m too much of a capitalist to buy into that notion.

My second point? Sanders isn’t even a Democrat. He ran for the U.S. Senate from Vermont as an independent. He doesn’t belong to a political party, although he does caucus with the Senate Democrats. He votes with them almost without fail. Still, he isn’t a Democrat.

So why is this guy talking about running again for the Democratic Party presidential nomination?

Moreover, why aren’t the media calling him out more vigorously on the phony association he has with a political party to which he doesn’t even belong?

Don’t run, Bernie. Leave the political stage to other politicians who have more to say than you do.