I’m not “with her,” but I’m voting for her

After a long fight, Bernie Sanders, the candidate I’ve been championing from the get-go, has endorsed Hillary Clinton. I know a lot of Sanders supporters are angry and upset. I, too, don’t understand why he didn’t wait until after the DNC, but I trust that he has his reasons.

As Bernie has said all along, this movement is not just about him or this single election. It’s about creating a lasting and effective change. It’s something that takes time and dedication. It’s about winning the war even if you lose a key battle or two along the way.

To put it bluntly, I don’t like Hillary Clinton. When this election started, I did my research (even though she’d say otherwise), and while I knew right away that Bernie was the candidate for me, I was still okay with Hillary. She didn’t strike me as incredibly progressive, but she didn’t seem awful.

As the election cycle chugged forward, I began to dislike her more and more. She wasn’t respectful of Sanders supporters, especially young adults like me. She often blew things out of proportion, doing whatever she could to make Bernie look bad while he honorably and steadfastly refused to talk about the fact that the FBI was considering bringing charges up against her.

She had no problem playing dirty even when Bernie offered her a fair playing field.

So why, if I hate her so much, would I ever vote for her? It’s pretty simple: Trump cannot win. He simply can’t, and the only way to stop him is to put Hillary in the White House. She is the lesser of two evils, and, compared to Trump, she looks like a saint.

I don’t think I need to say that Trump is a bigoted, racist, xenophobic jerk, but I will, just in case you forgot.

I don’t think I need to say that it would be disastrous for all minorities — particularly those who are Latinx, black, and/or Muslim — if Trump was elected, but I’ll mention it anyway.

I don’t think I need to warn you that the USA would be set so far back in terms of women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and immigration reform that we might as well give up now if Trump takes office in January, but I’ll throw it out there.

I know that some of the third party candidates seem like the solution, and in a more average election year I would seriously consider voting third party. But this is no normal election year, and it’s no secret that our political system is notoriously two party oriented, the votes given to any third party candidate typically taking away from the Democratic candidate’s count and aiding the Republican candidate.

I know we want to make a statement with our vote. We want to say we will not accept someone who lies, accepts money from super pacs, and has supported interventionist strategies in recent conflicts.

But the other option is much, much worse. The other option would literally wall-off the US and promote hatred, bigotry, and racism.

We can use our vote to make a lasting difference — we can vote progressives in to federal, state, and local offices. We can campaign for these candidates. They will usher in the groundwork for the change we are so desperate to create.

Hillary is not the progressive we wanted. There’s no sugarcoating that. But we need to vote for her.

We need to vote for her for the undocumented immigrants who cannot vote against Trump. We need to vote for her so the USA will keep accepting refugees fleeing the violence in the Middle East. We need to vote for her to keep the country moving forward, even if not at the pace we’d like, instead of zooming backward.

This is not the end. This does not mean we failed. This simply means we keep fighting, and fighting for our progressive agenda will be much easier under a President Clinton than a President Trump.