Hey Dan,

I'm a reasonable millenial Bernie supporter who will be voting for Hillary Clinton in November. While I would have preferred to vote for Bernie Sanders and I know that Hillary will easily win in Washington state I still feel that in order to maintain my dignity as a progressive I have to vote for the lesser of two evils, because one of these evils is exponentially less evil. Hillary may not be what I want regarding financial regulation and electoral reform she will still select more progressive Supreme Court Justices and enact progressive social reforms that will make it easier to get the reforms we so desperately need. I'm a strait white male, but I'm not too blinded by my privilege to see that Trump would do irreparable damage to racial minorities and members of the LGBTQ communities. If it's any consolation I suspect that all of these angry emails are from the ~20% of Bernie supporters who are probably the most vocal onlinr, the ~80% of us who understand what is at stake probably just aren't emailing you.

Thank you for what you do, both in your sex advice and in the political sphere,

Greg R.

Another reasonable email from a sane Sanders supporter... after the jump.

Thank you, Dan, for your piece on the Bernie or Busters.

I live in Maine where we have a Trumpish governor who has been enormously destructive. He has a disdain for democratic governance and lots of opinions for which he lacks any evidence. Anyone who says Trump doesn’t matter should be forced to watch a highlight reel of Paul LePage’s comments and see the damage in the form of increasing numbers of deeply poor children. Now LePage wants food stamps dropped because kids might get a piece of candy sometime.

Trump would be even worse because he is a rich guy who is used to having people do what he wants and because his powers would be much greater, with real nuclear codes and the ability to crash the world economy.

A lot of folks who hate Clinton don’t know the good she’s done, including on LGBT rights. They only look at her marriage position, as if that’s everything and don’t know or ignore all the rest, including her international work. (Have you seen this, by the way?)

Nothing is more annoying than the purity types, with their cries about earning their votes. My take as a political scientist is that voting isn’t about the voters getting the exact candidate they want and feeling good about it. That’s not what the system is designed for delivering. We have a two party system, due our electoral laws, and we have a big, sprawling diverse country.

There’s not going to be an exact match, like from some perfect dating site, for everyone, not that there ever is a perfect match in our relationships anyway.

The point of the vote is to decide the direction of the country. So we make choices from the candidates who can actually become president. We can have Trump, LePage with nuclear codes. Or we can have Clinton, who is a lot like Obama

Anyway, I should stop, because the busters, as you and I know, may be loud but there aren’t very many. Although I must say, I’d be happier if Bernie stopped acting as if getting things in the platform was transforming anything and if he’d act like a mensch and wholeheartedly endorse and praise Clinton.

Best,

Amy