Fellow Bernie supporters: don’t feel betrayed. Be proud.

Today, Bernie Sanders joined Hillary Clinton on stage in New Hampshire and gave a rousing speech in which he crystallized some of the most pressing issues that his campaign has fought for. He explicitly endorsed Hillary Clinton for president with regards to those issues and how he knows Hillary will stand on them. He did so only after a long and awkward cycle in which the two often seemed at odds, only after he met with her, met with the DNC, and met with the platform committee. And yet so many of his supporters are very upset right now.

As a Bernie supporter throughout the entire election cycle, and friends and colleagues with many others, I knew there would be a bit of backlash. I took to Twitter to check the hashtags and see for myself just how some would take the news. Many cried “sellout,” and many others felt downright betrayed.

I felt neither of those things as I watched the live stream of Bernie and Hillary’s speeches. I felt immense pride in the candidate I had backed, campaigned for, and donated to. And the reason is simple: we got a lot done this cycle.

Many Bernie supporters seem to be clinging to an all-or-nothing (Bernie or Bust) mentality when it comes to the Presidency, which seems unusual to me unless this is the very first time you’ve ever voted for President. If you’ve had any experience with the American political system, then you know full well that no politician says every single thing exactly the way we want them to say them. No politician’s platform is universally accepted as perfect and ideal. No politician can match the high standards to which our own ideals hold them, because no politician does their work in a vacuum. Instead, they do their work with many others, and in the face of staunch opposition. This is where the tired phrase “reaching across the aisle” comes from, from the tradition of compromise that politics has historically drawn from.

So it struck me as slightly upsetting and disappointing that so many now-former Bernie supporters cry foul when he endorsed Hillary, citing one of the most pressing political issues facing this country: defeating Donald Trump.

Make no mistake, at this point in this crazy election cycle, campaign finance reform, criminal justice reform, environmental issues, trade agreements, minimum wage adjustments, etc. are no longer the most important things for decent citizens who value true progress to cling to. Those issues are secondary, only after the first and most pressing issue is addressed. The most important thing we can do, politically, in the name of progress, is not allow Donald Trump to win the presidency. Bernie believes the best way for this to happen is by electing Hillary Clinton, but he did not arrive there out of sheer protocol. He fought very hard to press the DNC platform and press Hillary’s campaign to take a strong stance on all those other issues facing America. He illuminated issues that others swept under the rug and brought national attention to them, opening many eyes and creating a new conversation that only a very small subset of the voting population were passionate about before this election cycle. Only after some success in that arena did he feel comfortable endorsing her, knowing that she will be the best bet this time around, since he is unable to win the Democratic nomination.

Rather than feel betrayed, feel proud of Bernie, not just of his campaign, but also of his final decision. First things first, I urge you to read his note. Secondly, I urge you to look up the official draft of the DNC platform that was accepted over this past weekend. As both Hillary and Bernie noted in their speeches today, this is by far the most progressive platform that the Democratic party has ever had.

I feel strongly about environmentalism, but I know that the Green Party has such a hard time gaining popularity and mass appeal that Jill Stein’s likelihood of even gaining 5% of the vote is a super tall order. Gary Johnson is a libertarian, something that many former Bernie supporters and new Johnson supporters seem keen on forgetting, not admitting that libertarianism and democratic socialism are far, far apart.

I will vote for Hillary Clinton, because I can’t abide a Donald Trump presidency, and because I would have voted for Bernie had he won the nomination.

Now before you cry foul on the DNC and the rigged primary, let’s just admit one thing, fellow Bernie supporters: Bernie lost. Yes, the superdelegate system seems wrong, and I hope it gets changed, but by sheer popular vote numbers, Bernie lost. He had fewer states, fewer delegates, and fewer votes altogether. Bernie lost under the rules of the Democratic party, the party he chose to align with for this election. He knows he did, and admitted so humbly without being an insolent sore loser about it, so it should not be difficult for others to accept. Bernie had never aligned as a Democrat until this election, so he never pushed for rule changes until now, and now is too late unfortunately. Even if the rules had changed prior to this cycle, I’m not so sure Bernie would have won the nomination, even in spite of or without the deck seemingly stacked against him by the surely-on-the-way-out Debbie Wasserman-Schulz.

Instead of feeling betrayal, feel proud. Bernie opened so many eyes. Bernie highlighted the truly important social ills facing America. Bernie also played the game well but ultimately lost and as a humble and intelligent competitor conceded, congratulated her, and agreed to work with her to continue to fight for the things he knows to still be extremely important. Bernie forced the DNC to seek new leadership. He forced the party to work harder to bring working Americans into the fold. Bernie forced Hillary Clinton to recognize her would-be constituency’s concerns as working Americans and then worked with her to make sure that the official Democratic platform and her campaign would work to address those issues. Look it up before you yell at me, your friends, or Bernie himself.

Now you may say that Hillary will say anything to get elected, but I don’t think that is true. I don’t think she’d take Trump’s stances, even if they were more popular than they already surprisingly and unfortunately are. I think she is capable of evolution and progression in her stances on issues, especially as issues change and other issues come to light. This is the mark of an intelligent person, not a dishonest person. I can readily admit this despite being opposed to Hillary earlier in the cycle because I myself am intelligent and have changed my mind on a number of things. Those unwilling to budge on their opinions are doing no favors for themselves, and they do not seek true discourse, they seek validation.

The political revolution we all hoped for could have happened sooner with Bernie as president, maybe, but he also may have faced staunch opposition in Congress. We can’t know that for sure, but we can look at Bernie’s win record in Congress to know that, despite the importance and necessity of some of the bills he proposed over the years, he had a very hard time getting others to see it his way and vote yes on some of those bills. Governing and legislating does not occur in a vacuum.

Good governing can, however, occur with careful compromise and collaboration. Bernie understands this, and also understands that a third party candidate does not stand a good chance against Donald Trump this year. A third party candidate may have wiped the floor with Jeb Bush, (although I suspect even Bernie is skeptical there as well, considering he chose to run as a Democrat) but Donald Trump has his finger on an angry and ugly pulse in white middle America right now, and no third party candidate is going to stop that. A Democrat might though.

Sanders worked with the Democratic party to try to get as much of his platform on the national Democratic platform as possible, and won more than he didn’t. There are things that did not make it in, and those are things that I am disappointed about, just like there are things about Obama that disappoint me (TPP and the drone programs are obvious examples). But just because I am disappointed doesn’t mean that I won’t vote for some progress versus no progress. I’d vote for Obama again, no questions asked. Now that the Democratic party has been effectively pushed left of moderate, we can focus our energies on holding them accountable for those promises, supporting Hillary in a smart way that also holds her accountable, and fighting for other elected officials who will push for the progressive change we need. Need to know who those officials are? Bernie Sanders supports them, and he has been and will continue to draw attention to their races.

Forget about your anger and be proud that Bernie Sanders is such a good public servant and one of the better politicians we’ve ever had the privilege to support. Forget about your issues with Hillary personally, and focus on the vast number of people she can possibly help. Focus on your gubernatorial elections, your Senate and House elections, your state representative elections, and your local elections. Sign up on Bernie’s website to get help running yourself. The revolution takes some time, but an angry shift away from the pulse of the nation to third party candidates in this particular election cycle, or abstaining from voting altogether, isn’t helping the revolution. That is restarting, and that helps almost nobody.

Keep the momentum going. Keep your passion high, but focus it. Write to Hillary Clinton. Tell her what you need out of her if she is going to be President. You don’t have to like her, you just have to believe she’ll do a decent job. I believe she will because she’s intelligent, qualified, and strong, and also because Bernie Sanders, who knows Hillary well at this point and has worked closely with her the past few weeks, believes she will also.

You’ve trusted Bernie’s judgment this whole time, why would you be so quick to give that up now? Perhaps you never knew much about what he was about in the first place, perhaps you just wanted an alternative, perhaps it was always more about not having a Clinton in the White House again.

I urge you to read Bernie’s recent notes, watch the speeches, check the DNC platform draft that will be ratified in two weeks, and educate yourself on how else you can help the progressive movement outside of the Presidential election, and realize that you should be immensely proud of Bernie Sanders, not angry, not betrayed. I am thankful for Bernie, and proud to know that he values the most pressing political issue, defeating Donald Trump, more than he values his self-importance and pride.

If you want a candidate who clings to that pride in the face of common sense, perhaps Donald Trump is the candidate for you.