Dear Bernie Sanders Supporters,
I get it. Really, I do. I wanted a Sanders presidency. I voted for him. I believed in his vision of revolution, in the quiet, colossal power of ordinary people. I believed in his vision for the poor, the destitute, the forgotten. I still do. The invisible have never had so furious a champion. The quiet have never had so urgent a voice.
But it’s time to face the facts; he lost. He lost not because he was screwed by the mainstream media or some shadowy group of political elites. He lost because people didn’t vote for him. They voted for Hillary Clinton. That’s math, that’s democracy, and that’s the decision we’ve made. I voted for Bernie Sanders in the primary because he was the candidate on the ballot that I felt most shared my vision for the future of this country. I voted for Bernie Sanders on principle. I stand by my choice. I think it was the right one. The Democratic voters, however, do not, and they have shown that. To continue to believe in a Bernie Sanders presidency is no longer a matter of principle; it is a matter of privilege. Not all of us have that luxury.
Let’s be clear on the stakes of this election. If Donald Trump wins, 11,000,000 Latinos will likely be put in internment camps, indefinitely awaiting deportation to countries that do not want them and probably will not accept them. If Donald Trump wins, people you love and care about will be put in prison, not because they murdered or raped anybody, but because of where they were born. And that’s not something he needs congressional approval to do. When Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the order to imprison a hundred thousand Japanese-Americans for the color of their skin, he didn’t seek congressional approval. All he had to do was sign an executive order. There is a belief in this country that our system of checks and balances will protect us. In fact, they have not, and they will not.
Meanwhile, an actual rapist, bigot, and conman will move into the white house, giving the millions of racists, sexists, and homophobes that elected him validation for their backward, insulting beliefs. Donald Trump is more than a presidential candidate. He’s a symbol. We don’t just elect people president; we elect ideas. If Donald Trump is elected president, we will be electing hatred and injustice to the highest office in the land, and the effects of that will last long after he’s out of office.
In America, we seem to believe that we are free from change. This conception is so strong that In 1989, author and political commentator Francis Fukuyama declared that we are at “the end of history. . . that is, the endpoint of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.” There is a certain safety to be found in these words, but little sense. Democracies do not exist in stasis and they are not immune to despotism and demagoguery. If this 2016 election cycle has proven anything, it is that we are never safe from tyranny. It is always at our heels-- biting, scratching, and salivating. At this point in time, as we stand over the precipice, there is only one person who can stop Donald Trump. Like it or not, that person in Hillary Clinton. The superdelegates are not going to switch, and no pending lawsuit will change that she is the Democratic nominee for president of the United States. God help us, but this is what we voted for.
So what does this mean for Bernie supporters? It means that you have a choice to make in November. You can vote for Hillary Clinton, or you can vote for Donald Trump. There is no viable third party option, there is no abstention, and there is no conscientious objection. To fail to vote for Clinton this November would be neither conscientious nor an objection. It would be an act of moral cowardice and a reaffirmation of everything that politicians have always thought about minorities, poor people, and young people.
It is a widely quoted truism that “all that is necessary for the triumph is evil is for good men to do nothing.” If you fail to line up behind Hillary Clinton because you are too delusional to see the writing on the wall, then you are complicit in evil. If and when Donald Trump becomes the fascist that many have predicted he will be, then you will be to blame. When the camps are opened and the barbed wire erected and the gates are shut, it won’t just be Trump’s supporters standing guard; it will be you.
In politics, there is no such thing as silence. You will have to make a decision this November, whether you want to or not.
Sincerely,
M. Yabuki
