I’ll go ahead and say it -- this election is wild. I’ve been a Hillary supporter for as long as I can remember, and even favored her during the 2008 primaries (despite being 10). I continually told people before she announced her candidacy that she would eventually run in 2016. Yet, I decided I was a bigger fan of Bernie Sanders after doing my research. I voted in the primaries, and I told my friends and family as much as I could, hoping to influence people towards a great candidate. Despite my previous love for Clinton, I felt strongly about electing Senator Sanders as our next president.

But as we all know, the primaries are finished, the DNC is finished and Hillary Clinton is our official candidate for the Democratic Party. This has been a trying situation for many of us -- we loved the future that Bernie stood for, and now we’re either going to choose between a proud capitalist, a proud racist, or one of our several third-party candidates. While many people speak about the benefits of the third-party candidates, and how we could legitimize them through this election, it just doesn’t make sense. Legitimizing third-party candidates will be a long process that we should not risk a Trump presidency for. So, despite my love for Bernie, I agree that as a party, we should unify.

Hillary Clinton is a solid candidate that can learn from past mistakes, and a candidate that will likely listen to her constituents. But for her to do so, we need to speak up on the issues we want to be heard. We have to write to our legislators, and make our voices heard. So, first and foremost, I want to offer some critique to our future president, as well as support the unifying of the party, opposed to suggesting we vote third-party.

There are many downsides to the party platform, despite the push to absorb some of Senator Sander’s policy ideas. What we loved about Bernie was his desire to shift our economy away from serving the 1 percent, and more towards the 99 percent. He fought for small business, the poor and the working classes. He pushed for higher wages, and lower student debt. Ultimately, his ideals swung towards a socialistic economy. This is a side that Clinton has only slightly budged on. For the most part, she understands the desire for higher wages, and lower debts; she understands the desire to control the loopholes that the 1 percent manage to pass through. But we remember all too well the time she proclaimed, “I am a proud capitalist!” These ideals don’t survive under a capitalistic society -- a society built on the backs of the enslaved, and on cheap labor. While we can shift our capitalism, these ideals would survive better in a democratic socialist society, as proposed by Senator Sanders.

Secondly, Hillary Clinton needs to be more inclusive when she listens to constituents. Instead of speaking over Black Lives Matter activists, she should raise their voices. Instead of allowing people like Lena Dunham represent her feminism, she should include better representatives (and maybe reevaluate whether her advocates truly represent the ideas she stands for). Instead of basing her campaign off of the memes that millennials shared, she should have listened to the voices of grassroots activists.

I am not a strong hater of Hillary Clinton. She has issues that she can improve her stance on, but she’s not been the worst. Though, when she picked Tim Kaine, my support did waiver. I know how everyone feels -- his voting record is not necessarily on par with that of a Democrat. Hillary, who is not overly progressive herself, ultimately alienates the Bernie supporters by choosing someone more moderate. If she picked someone like Sanders, she might have alienated her more moderate voters.

All in all, voting for Clinton will be our best choice. She will listen to her progressive constituents, though she has room to grow on that front. She will push for appointments and elections of democratic politicians. And most of all, she strongly opposes the dangerous ideas and rhetoric from Donald Trump. If you’ve supported Bernie all of this time, don’t go against that support by voting third-party (or god forbid, Donald Trump). Let’s unite as a party, elect Hillary Clinton and voice our opinions to our legislators to grow as a country.