The 2016 presidential election primary season will come to an end very soon. The Republican primary virtually ended months ago when Donald Trump became the only candidate running for the Republican ticket. Meanwhile the Democratic primary has not nearly been so clear, but Hillary Clinton has seemed to secure enough support from both delegates and superdelegates to secure herself as the Democratic nominee. Some would argue that that is not the case, but that is not the point of this article.
As the primary season has started to wind down a bit, there has been a common response to Bernie Sanders supporters from many of Clinton's supporters and leaders in the Democratic party: "it is time to fall in line." Of course, there are many supporters of Sanders who are going to vote blue just to make sure that Democrats maintain control of the executive branch of the government. However, many of his supporters are refusing to just vote for Clinton if she is the Democratic nominee, and this response is totally understandable. These Sanders' supporters feel that Clinton is the embodiment of everything that they have been fighting to end over the past year: campaign finance corruption, corporate greed, warmongering, status quo politics, etc. Therefore, it is going to take a lot more than telling them to "fall in line" for them to vote for Clinton.
Personally, I fall into the group of people who currently does not want to "vote blue no matter who." A Trump presidency does scare me and I know that as the leader of our country he definitely would not make it great. I've seen the threat of Trump as the main reason for people quickly switching their allegiance from Sanders to Clinton. However, I see some of Clinton's views of the issues our country faces and they seem totally out of line with what I'd expect from a Democratic nominee and from someone who I'd want to vote for.
How can she fight to end the income inequality gap and not push for a $15 minimum wage? How can she be a champion of the environment and not declare that a ban on fracking is needed? How can she be in favor of campaign financing reform while utilizing loopholes in the system to coordinate with super PACs? How can we trust that she won't bring us into more wars that will only result in more instability and death of Americans and other innocent lives?
There are quite a few things that I, as well as many other Sanders' supporters, feel Clinton needs to rethink her stances on in order to gain our votes in November. At this point in time, fear and the commands to "fall in line" are not enough to make me vote blue. Clinton has to promise us that our votes and endorsements of her won't lead to our regret in the coming years.
Each day I see more and more supporters of Sanders trying to figure out what to do in November. I've also seen most of the likely candidates reaching out to these individuals to try to win them over to their side. Trump has emphasized his and Sanders' similar stances in regards to trade and the TPP. Gary Johnson, of the Libertarian party, has also been recruiting many ex-Sanders' supporters with his anti-establishment views.
I currently have no plans to vote for either of those candidates and do not expect that to change. However, I have recently seen the Green party candidate Jill Stein showing up throughout my social media pages. Her views are basically the same as Bernie's and she is growing in popularity as more voters learn of her. I think out of the three other candidates, she has the greatest chance of "taking" votes from Clinton by persuading Bernie supporters to vote for her. Many say that voting for Stein would be a "throw away" vote because she has no chance at winning, but I feel that voting for someone that you don't actually believe in is throwing away your vote.
It is time for Clinton to start reaching out to Bernie's supporters with ideas and promises rather than the command to "fall in line." She has about five months to gain our trust, otherwise she may isolate an important group of voters who she needs to win the election.
