I hear you. I was mostly responding to the assertion in Clay’s original writing. I feel my vote for Bernie mattered quite a bit to me — even if it didn’t impact the result. I chose to have someone represent me with a future I could support.

I feel the same about people who are voting third party in the general. Saying they are throwing their votes away serves one of two purposes (neither of which is Clay’s intention) — convinces them that Hillary et al. doesn’t care about reaching out and further isolates them from the rest of the ticket OR convinces them to just stay home. In truth it says, “this person is who I trust with my voice.” If Trump wins, he can’t take that from those who voted for Hillary. Bush never was able to take my vote for Gore away from me — maybe it had no impact on the world, but I was able to say, “this man deserves my voice.” Voting is one of those things that is both public and intensely personal, as it should be.

The truth is a Bernie or Bust (the intended audience) crowd is unlikely to vote Trump (and those that will will not be impacted by this essay) or Clinton, but regardless of their vote for President will generally be fairly liberal down ticket. To bait them the way Clay has done serves his stated goal very little.

Honestly, I look for an aspirational candidate — Obama was that (which is why he won, in my opinion), imagining a brighter better future. Reality has a way of grinding that down, but it was that imagery that inspired. Even the third party candidates are missing that this year — everything is an alternative to the others.

I understand where you’re coming from and I refuse to begrudge you your vote; I also refuse to begrudge the vote of someone voting for the angry cream puff.

In the end, we all need to find some common ground regardless of who we supported in this election. I worry the rhetoric being thrown around right now will come back to bite us all.