A smattering of boos at the mention of Donald Trump at the Democratic National Convention was met with a catchy but crucial response by our Commander-in-Chief:

“Don’t boo. Vote.”

In its original context, the meaning is simple. If the very mention of Trump elicits a visceral negative response, vote against him. Given the backdrop of the Democratic National Convention, Obama’s message was to vote for Hillary Clinton.

“But wait!” says a contingency of the #NeverTrump voters. “There are four candidates! I can vote against Trump without voting for Hillary and that’s what I’ll do because they’re both just as bad! I’m not going to vote for the lesser of two evils!”

Oh boy. There’s a lot of malarkey (S/O Uncle Joe) to unpack here. Let’s start with the “lesser of two evils” belief.

Hillary Clinton is not "evil". Nor is she "just as bad" as Trump. She's served the country for almost her entire adult life, helped install a plan to provide healthcare to millions of children, pushed to provide funding for healthcare for 9/11 first responders, worked to provide equal educational opportunities for disabled children in America, and would nominate Supreme Court justices who would preserve progress already made such as the right for same sex couples to get married and the removal of excessive restrictions on abortion rights. Early in her career, she used her legal skills to advocate for children and helped found the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. Her work as Secretary of State featured similar advocacy for women and children across the world which pushes back at the jaded view of politicians only helping people in exchange for their votes. You may not agree with the above policies, but my concern is that many voters, whose knee-jerk reaction to Hillary Clinton is disdain, aren’t actually aware of these positive changes she helped promote. Finding similar positive and selfless changes brought about by Donald Trump is a practice in futility and seeing the two as two sides of the same coin has little logical basis.

If you’re with me so far, then hopefully we can agree that Hillary is clearly the better of the two. And here’s the thing. Those are the only two candidates for the presidency. Sure, there are four people running. But on November 8th, Gary Johnson and Jill Stein, the two outsider candidates, will not and cannot win 270 electoral votes. Whether it’s because 90% of Trump and Clinton supporters are already committed to their candidate or because they have less money than I have Pidgeys in Pokemon Go, they simply have no chance. But let’s forget that for a second and talk about why, for the sake of an America that is constantly moving forward, that they should not win.

Jill Stein shares a disqualifying trait with Donald Trump (beyond lukewarm equivocation on scientific facts); no history of holding meaningful public office. At no point have either been required to make a decision affecting millions of constituents. Neither has had to make a vote regarding the allocation of millions of taxpayer dollars, the lives of military personnel, the rights of Americans, or anything else that requires balancing the pros and cons that are presented in a bill in Congress and coming to a decision that will actually affect the entire nation. The idea that someone like that could be our commander-in-chief or in charge of nominating Supreme Court justices is almost indescribably absurd. Even if you were to replace the least qualified president in history with one of these two, it would be like replacing the worst NBA player with me and all the skill and power I possess in my 5’4", 100 pound frame. Sure I can hit the occasional open three, but let’s be real.

I’m not really concerned about Stein siphoning votes. But Gary Johnson taking just enough votes from undecideds and the Bernie-or-bust crew could send us spiraling into the darkness of the Trump age. Which is why looking at his policies to prove why he shouldn’t and can’t win is worthwhile. Johnson leans towards the right, but vacillates on particularly tough issues. He prefers the government not get involved in abortion rights, and anything other than an adamant pro-life platform will not win over voters in the Deep South. But his troubling desire to overturn Roe v. Wade won’t (and shouldn’t) endear him to liberals and progressives. Neither should his opposition to gun control, affirmative action, raising the federal minimum wage, and truly progressive taxation.

This leaves us with Hillary Clinton, two candidates who are inexperienced and totally unqualified (one of whom is not even on every state’s ballot while the other is an unapologetic bigot) and an ambivalent alternative who’s not progressive enough to preserve the advances of the Obama years, not liberal enough to win California and New York, not conservative enough to win Texas or the rest of the Deep South, and not fundraising enough to win anything more than a scratch-off. Now I don’t think it requires process of elimination to realize that Hillary Clinton is the most qualified candidate in the field. But the fact is, regardless of Clinton’s history of public service, much of the public simply will not abandon their unfavorable views of her. And if that means the only chance of getting some to vote for her is to define her as the only reasonable non-Trump choice, then so be it. Yes, a vote for Johnson and Stein isn’t directly a vote for Trump. No, it is not an effective vote to stop him. In fact, it’s about as effective in stopping a Trump presidency as booing him is. And here, as he so often does, President Obama said it best. “Don’t boo. Vote.”