Around this time last year, I was taking a walk in the park with my boyfriend discussing politics. We both were bemoaning the fact that, even that far out, we could tell it was going to be a boring season: Clinton vs. Bush, and as Democrats, we weren’t going to have any say in the process. After all, who else could possibly stand a chance against her? I mentioned that some Senator I’d only vaguely heard of before from Vermont had entered the race, and that maybe he would be a good alternative, but the idea of Bernie Sanders presenting a serious challenge to Hillary Clinton was a longshot, and the best we could hope for was that maybe he’d push her far left enough in the primary that she couldn’t walk all the way back to center in time for the general.

Well, we were wrong on a few counts. First of all, Jeb got eaten alive in the Republican primary and we are now stuck with the real-life version of Biff Tannen from “Back to the Future”. Second, Bernie really gave Hillary a run for her money, and for a month or two, it actually looked like he might make it all the way to the nomination. It was a very exciting time: an election we had assumed would be more like a coronation was going to be a race after all, and whatever the outcome, the American people actually got to make their voices heard. More than that, a man whom most of the country had never even heard of managed to break “yuuuuuge” barriers, proving that even in a post-Citizens United world, the individual’s time, money, and votes can still make a difference, and becoming the first Jewish person in American history to win a state’s presidential primary election for a major party.

But, sadly, a Bernie Sanders presidency is not in the cards. Yes, the superdelegates do not vote until the convention, but let’s be honest with ourselves: the superdelegates are almost universally the exact Democratic establishment that Sanders has spent a year now railing against. Most of them will not switch their votes to him, and they shouldn’t, because no matter how you split it, the fact remains that more people voted for Hillary Clinton. Yes, there have been some scandals involving voter suppression, but none of these are widespread enough, and even in cases where you could argue that Sanders got a bum deal, it was only a few delegates’ worth of votes. Given that not a single state is winner-take-all or even winner-take-most for the Democrats, it would not be nearly enough to close the 400-delegate lead Clinton currently has in pledged delegates. Even if the superdelegates changed their votes to reflect the way their states voted, as Sanders has urged them so many times, it still would not be enough, and anything more than that would be contrary to ideals we claim to have fought so hard for. So, it is time to accept that we have lost this battle and ask ourselves what to do next.

First of all, I will not demand you unite behind Hillary Clinton. I will be voting for her in the fall, but it is your right as an American citizen to cast your vote according to your conscience. I urge you, however, not to vote for Trump, who is, as mentioned, the actual real-life Biff Tannen. Heck, if one of your issues with Hillary is the way she has flip-flopped on issues, she has nothing on Donald Trump’s daily changes in opinion. Not to mention that, while Hillary might not be as good for the political revolution Sanders has argued for, Trump would do everything in his power to destroy it: people like Trump are only who you should vote for if you want to see more of what we saw early Sunday morning in Orlando. Go ahead, though: go vote Green or Libertarian, or even the Modern Whig Party, if you live in one of the two states that even lets them onto the ballot. I won’t presume to demand you vote one way or another, especially if you don’t live in a swing state. What I will do, however, is urge you to consider the facts about Clinton. She lies, from time to time. So does every politician. She will probably keep the status quo from Obama, more or less. Well, if Obama hadn’t had a Republican congress the last six years, that proposition would sound a lot more appealing, so if we can fix that, then I think that’s just fun. She is a bit more interventionist than many of us would like. This is a fair criticism, but given the promises Obama made about foreign policy in 2008 that he was unable to keep, well, at least with Hillary we know what we’re getting into, and not to bring Trump into it, but of the two, I trust Hillary with our nuclear launch codes a lot more. Sure, she is not as far left as Bernie Sanders, but her record in the Senate is honestly not that different from his, and if you believe that she changes her stances just to appeal to voters, well, you’re in luck, because that means that if voters show that we support initiatives that are to the left of her, she will probably start supporting them. Having a candidate who is malleable on the issues is not necessarily a bad thing, so long as they retain some sort of spine, which Hillary does. Also, sending death and/or rape threats to people who support Hillary is not cool. If you’re a Bernie Sanders supporter, I suspect Bernie would be disappointed in you for that kind of behavior.

Second, in the name of all things good and righteous in this world, vote in your local elections. One of Sanders’s biggest hopes was to kick of a political revolution and bring more and more progressive voices into the system who will actually work to create change. I don’t care whether Hillary is in office, whether Bernie is in office, or whether Vermin Supreme pole-vaults onto the steps of the Capitol Building in January and declares himself Emperor of These United States: they aren’t going to get a single thing done unless we can turn Congress blue again. If you think it’s bad that they won’t even consider a Supreme Court nominee put forth by Obama, imagine how bad they’ll get if the White House stays in Democratic hands. And don’t stop at Congress. Do your research. Vote for your governor, for your state legislature, for sheriff, for town council, for mayor. In my own state of North Carolina, it is imperative that we get Governor Pat McCrory out of office and replace him with Roy Cooper if we want a governor who will actually follow the Department of Justice’s orders and stop enforcing the despicable House Bill 2. Sanders’s political revolution and the ideals of progressivism are what we should be fighting for, not one man.

Lastly, get involved. This is America, and we are its people. Our founding fathers handed us an imperfect system, but it is designed to serve us, and we will only create lasting change in it if we work from the inside. Get involved, and maybe the next time a Bernie Sanders comes along, he or she will make it a lot further, or, heck, we might not even need one, because we’ll get there on our own.