In the past few weeks, I've heard many Bernie supporters say they aren't voting for Hillary if she becomes the democratic nominee, and many Hillary supporters say they aren't voting for Bernie if he becomes our candidate.
I generally hear the same reasons from everyone: the other candidate doesn't support the person's values. Either that, or it's that the other candidate is just as bad as Trump.
As a Bernie supporter, I completely support sticking by your values. In fact, I think that's what a lot of his campaign is about. However, there is no way to get around that neither Bernie nor Hillary are as bad as Trump, and Trump as president would be pretty horrendous, to say the least.
The fact is that a lot of us can make through a Trump presidency relatively unscathed. As a woman, a lot of my access to things like abortion and birth control will be restricted in ways they wouldn't be under Hillary or Bernie, but I still have a lot of privilege. My whole family was born here. I don't have to worry about which bathroom to use.
For people without these privileges, it is a matter of life and death. I can't let Trump take my vote knowing that there are people who may die if Trump is elected president.
A lot of my friends who support Bernie don't like that Hillary supports Israel and actively rejects Palestine. People I know who support Hillary don't like Bernie's stance on guns. Although both of these are important, neither one of these things scares me as much as the idea of Donald Trump being president.
According to ontheissues.org, Donald Trump is against gay marriage, believes the police are the most mistreated people in America and wants to defund Planned Parenthood. For the LGBT+ community, minority groups, working class people and women, all of this is a very real and scary thing.
You're absolutely opposed to voting for either Bernie or Hillary? Fine: lesser-known presidential candidate Jill Stein is still an option. A vote for a third party candidate is still a vote against Trump.
I appreciate criticism of both Bernie, Hillary and even Jill Stein, but, when it comes down to it, I care more about human rights than I do about my pride. Although Bernie and Hillary are flawed in many ways, as humans are, both of them will cause less pain as president than Trump.
