What I find missing from Michael Albert’s commentary is an acknowledgement and a validation of the moral outrage felt by many people, mainly but not only young people, that they are being told to choose between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. You are right that Hillary Clinton will do less harm than a Trump presidency but the harm of her militaristic, imperialist and neoliberal administration will be major to people inside the United States, and probably even more to those living in other countries.
So I think people who say they cannot in good conscience vote for Hillary Clinton, even in contested states such as Florida, Ohio, etc. should not be criticized nor pressured to change their mind. I know many, many people in this category and when I ask them what they are likely to do in November, besides telling me about their anger at the mainstream media promotion of Clinton and the marginalization of Bernie, and the daily coverage of Trump, almost all of them tell me they will either not vote or vote for the Greens. I do not criticize this decision although if they ask me what I believe, I say that voting for Hillary Clinton in states where it is not clear who will win, also makes sense and is defensible.
Reducing voting to a strategic decision leaves out the moral dilemma felt by so many newly politicized and radicalized people, who are a natural base for the growth of an anti-capitalist transformational politics. My point is not so much that I disagree with the analysis that Michael and others put forward but the way you are presenting it. It leads to you, no matter what your rationale, being dismissed by those who refuse to vote for Hillary as one who compromises with and in the end, who accepts the bankrupt establishment. This is important because it makes building a movement that includes both those who are making a tactical decision to vote for Hillary in some states and those who refuse to vote for her, more difficult, now and after November, 2016.
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