Working for, or Voting for, our eventual Nomiee.

[Tom Rinaldo]

There's a huge difference between voting for someone and actually supporting them. I support Sanders for President, so in my case what I'm writing about here concerns weighing the merits of a Bernie or Bust position, but some Hillary supporters may ponder similar thoughts if events should somehow turn dramatically and Bernie seemed poised to become the Democratic nominee for President.

In my case I am not now and never will be in a Bernie or Bust camp in the 2016 election. In short there is nothing plausible that Hillary Clinton could now do that she hasn't done already that would keep me from voting for her over Trump. There is nothing plausible that I can still find out about Hillary Clinton that I don't know about her already that would keep me from voting for her against Trump. I consider voting to be a low impact but minimal expenditure of energy activity. I don't need a long list of compelling arguments to persuade me to vote for one person over another. I don't have to believe in or even like the person I vote for in order to vote for them. If Hillary is more likely than Trump to minimally slow down the advance of global warming that's reason enough for me to vote for her. If she is more likely to appoint a Supreme Court Justice who will protect a woman's right to choose, or eventually roll back Citizen's United than would a Trump appointee, that's reason enough for me to vote for her. If she is less off her rocker crazed with megalomaniac narcissism to the point of being fundamentally unstable than is Trump, that too is reason enough for me to vote for her.

Voting is meaningful, more people should do it and I always do, but it really doesn't mean all of that much in the big picture. My individual vote can get cancelled out in a matter of moments by the jerk down the street - my energy however is much harder to counter when I become fully invested in any campaign. I hear the arguments made by Bernie or Bust folks, I respect their reasoning but don't buy the conclusion. I will be voting for the Democratic candidate in the 2016 election regardless of who it is. Simply put, it will take me less overall effort, and not significantly more time, for me to cast that vote in November than it does for me to write and edit this OP. The Democrats can count on that much from me minimally, when the only viable alternative to a Democrat becoming our next President is Donald Trump becoming our next President.

The act of voting for someone does not deplete my energy or resources, so in the final analysis I am willing to vote for the lesser evil when that day of reckoning comes. But I will say this for the Bernie or Bust contingent, and for those with like minded sentiments regarding different Democratic politicians: I will only fight for the people and causes I believe in. Energy and money are both too finite for me to tie up indefinitely in struggles that divert me from the fights and causes that are most important to me. They certainly are too precious to be drained in efforts that at best only mitigate my and others ultimate oppression rather than fundamentally work to reverse it.

I am a Democrat but I no longer believe in the Democratic Party. I almost always vote Democratic in a general election, but I am far more likely to invest my energy into transforming the current Democratic Party than I am into helping elect the type of Democrats who typically secure the Democratic nomination for higher offices. And I am by far most likely to invest my energy and resources directly into the issues and causes that I believe in. Campaigning for establishment candidates barely makes it onto the bottom of my list of priorities now. Strong movements move politics - when politicians feel compelled to chase after them for votes.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. My sentiments exactly.

If Hillary is the nominee, which looks likely, I'll vote for her because the alternative would be worse. To state it more accurately, I will be voting against Donald Trump, not so much for Hillary. I hate it that we are stuck with a lesser-of-two-evils situation and I hate it that progressives are once again in the position of not having anybody to vote for. Some people won't vote at all, which is their right. I'll just go vote against the orange-haired, tiny-fingered demagogue - that bugger is dangerous. But the Democratic Party, having failed to support the candidate who could best defeat him and who represents real change, has become, in many respects, merely what the Republican Party was 40 years ago, though it at least pays lip service to liberal social positions. As to economics and foreign policy, though, they're Nixon-style Republicans.

So, yes, I'll drag my sorry old ass to the polls, try not to hurl as I fill in the little oval next to Hillary's name but vote happily for down-ticket progressive Democrats like Keith Ellison. And in the future any political activities I engage in will be grassroots efforts to keep Bernie's movement going.

This reminds me - not in a good way - of my old protest days in college during the '60s. "Fuck the Establishment," we said. I hate it that we have to do that all over again. I'm too old for this shit.

[Tom Rinaldo]

2. Yup. Though LBJ was far far better than Goldwater, he still mired us in Viet Nam...

I respected so much of what he accomplished, but we still hit the streets to protest the war. Just being a Democrat isn't enough, especially the way the current Democratic Party has drifted. I may vote for a Democrat on a Tuesday, and then still protest his or her policy on Wednesday. Politicians seek to enter public office ostensibly, and sometimes sincerely, to be public servants . They are there for us, so we owe them no loyalty when they are not. We have to be willing to fight for our own interest regardless of political labels and loyalty demanded of us.

I'm old for this too now, but there are younger generations seizing the torch for the long haul.