“Howard Schultz Considering Independent Presidential Run After Finding No Initial Support Among Any Voter Groups,” ran The Onion’s satirical take on the former Starbucks CEO’s potential third-party run for the White House in 2020.

And maybe it is the ultimate vanity candidacy. After all, Schultz, a self-described “lifelong Democrat,” only recently gave up on running in his own party’s primaries after realizing he had no shot.

Nor is he ready for prime time. Asked on CNBC if he’d raise taxes on corporations, Schultz insisted, “I don’t want to talk in the hypothetical about what I would do if I was president.” Umm, that’s what presidential candidates do.

So Democrats can stop worrying about an independent Schultz bid splitting the anti-Trump vote and so re-electing the president.

But that doesn’t mean they should ignore him completely. After all, this is a guy who grew up in New York City housing projects and then built an incredibly successful company, becoming a multibillionaire-with-a-B.

He says he’d run because the Democrats aren’t looking like they’ll produce a viable alternative to Trump, because the hard left has seized control of the party’s agenda. He’s spot-on there.

At worst, Howard Schultz will waste some of his own cash on a hopeless candidacy. But maybe his defiance will breathe some sense into a Democratic Party gone mad.