For the past several months, the DNC’s chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, has come under fire for her perceived favoritism towards Democratic frontrunner, Hillary Clinton. For quite some time, the DNC’s favoritism was touted as “speculation” and “hearsay” by those in the pro-Hillary camp, but the signs were, admittedly, suspicious. Debates that would have offered Sanders more exposure (back when name recognition was a problem he faced) were scheduled at times that would clearly minimize the amount of Americans who would watch the debates, which would both limit Hillary’s exposure and Bernie’s. The difference is that when Hillary is in the spotlight, her likability takes an hit and she has a tendency to, in her words, “misspeak,” whereas Bernie has a tendency to move people and gain new followers when he’s exposed to new voters.

The chairwoman also came under fire for limiting the amount of total democratic debates to a measly 6, as opposed to over 20 debates in the 2008 primary, an adamant rule enacted by the Chairwoman, herself. Not only that, the DNC’s head of financial operations, Henry Muños III, was caught red handed organizing a San Antonio fundraiser for Hillary Clinton; a direct violation of the DNC rules. He was never actually reprimanded for that violation, either.

Additionally, the DNC lined up superdelegates for Hilary months in advance of the actual primary votes. The Clinton campaign proudly reported one-fifth of the overall superdelegates had already pledged to support her before then first primary debate had even taken place. Most of those superdelegates are DNC officials and allies, which led some to accuse the DNC of rigging the delegate count in favor of Clinton from the beginning. Major news networks cam under fire for including said superdelegates in the overall delegate count often displayed during primary season, which made the Hillary delegate lead look much larger, according to Sanders’ camp, than it actually was.

But perhaps most unnerving was the allegations brought by Politico writer Ken Vogel, who wrote an aggressive and alarming piece on the Hillary Victory Fund, essentially accusing the DNC of funneling money meant for state committees and the DNC into the Hillary campaign’s pocket. Indeed, evidence does suggest that such a scheme was actually taking place. As per the law, donors are limited in the amount of money that they can give to a campaign, to the state committees, and to the DNC. This money is supposed to be attributed to down ticket races, for the purpose of electing democrats to office at the state level. But in reality, less than 1% of that money, a whopping $61 million according to Vogel’s reporting, actually went to supporting down-ticket races.

But much of this, for months, was just speculation. Many of the larger media outlets dismissed it as conspiracy theories. But with the recent release of a slew of private DNC emails hacked by an unknown source, Bernie supporters’ fears have been realized with cold, hard evidence.

To anyone who took the plunge into the library of more than 20,000 released emails from the notorious Wikileaks website, one thing has been made abundantly clear; the primary battle between Hillary and Bernie was rigged from the beginning. Released emails detailed a number of disturbing conversations. One email from DNC Chief Financial Officer Brad Marshall called for an attack on Sanders’ faith.

“This could make several points difference with my peeps,” Marshall wrote. “My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist.” He went on to write, "for KY and WVA can we get someone to ask his belief. Does he believe in a God. He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage.” Though Sanders wasn’t named directly, the email was quite obviously alluding to him.

Another email, an exchange between DNC communications director Luis Miranda and one of his subordinates, Mark Paustenbach, revealed that the pair was brainstorming ways to spin a controversy surrounding a member of Sanders’ campaign to make Bernie look bad. "Wondering if there's a good Bernie narrative for a story, which is that Bernie never ever had his act together, that his campaign was a mess,” Paustenback wrote, to which Miranda replied, "True, but the Chair has been advised to not engage. So we'll have to leave it alone.”

Yet another email, apparently from May 6th, showed a conversation between a Wall Street Journalist and both Miranda and Paustenbach, in which the reporter asked for a private letter between Sanders and the DNC. Paustenbach responded, “OFF THE RECORD, You didn’t get this from me. They didn’t send it to us before planting the story. We’re operating in good faith,” with a file attached that appears to be the private letter.

With piling evidence of collusion, Sanders supporters find themselves between a rock and a hard place. They can see hard evidence that the democratic race was actively manipulated by major party officials (who have long touted themselves as “for the people” and strong advocates of the Democratic process), which may have even led to Sanders’ eventual loss of the primary. To add insult to injury, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, immediately after stepping down in the wake of the controversy surrounding the emails, was appointed as chairwoman of Hillary’s campaign.

Now, Sanders’ followers are faced with a choice; support the DNC that actively rigged the primary and subverted the democratic process, and their candidate who not only benefited from such collusion, but rewarded the despised and disgraced DNC ex-chairwoman with a spot on her campaign staff, or face a Trump presidency and everything that comes with it. It’s hardly a wonder that Sanders’ enormous base is furious. But now, many Sanders supporters are faced with a daunting choice; the hard-right and progressive antithesis, Trump, or the forced-down-your-throat pseudo-progressive, Hillary. May have opted out entirely, stating they will vote for the Libertarian or Green Party tickets instead. Others are simply staying home. If one thing is for certain, its that the Hillary v. Trump choice in November is a grim prospect for many Americans, and that’s unlikely to change as the November election creeps toward us.