I am a Democratic Socialist and throughout the primaries, supported Bernie Sanders but I am not willing to give the country to Donald Trump or any Republican. We should remember 2000. Al Gore was the "Clinton" candidate, he was Bill's vice president and a member of the Clinton team. A combination of gross corruption in the Florida executive branch run by his brother, the Supreme Court partially appointed by his father, and Ralph Nader spoiling the election caused the country to be given to George W. Bush.
The choice we have before us is a candidate equatable to Al Gore and a candidate equatable to George Bush. Have we forgotten the two wars, the recession, the unprecedented national debt, almost losing social security, torture, and the innumerable follies committed under Bush that wouldn't have been under Gore. Yes, the 90's came with free trade agreements, welfare cuts, the crime bill, and the repeal of Glass-Steagle to name a few but they were not the cesspool of the following decade.
The worst problem we have blocking progress is not the fact that Clinton is a moderate with some corporate ties. It's stuff like Gerrymandering and Citizens United. Bill Clinton appointed the court's most liberal current justice: Ruth Bader Ginsberg. If we want Citizens United overturned, Hillary Clinton will appoint justices who overturn it as well as stopping the court from being a 5-4 Conservative block for every vote involving the EPA, minority rights, and everything else.
The democratic socialist movement needs to get seats on city councils and in state legislatures. We need to elect congresspeople who are members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. We need to reignite Occupy, combine it with Black Lives Matter, and give the corporates a reckoning they won't soon forget with protests that look like Chicago in 1968 or Seattle in 1999 and grassroots organising a resistance that makes their skin crawl. But for president, we have to settle for the 90's and the 90's weren't that bad. The country can manage another Clinton, I don't know how we'll fare under another Bush.
I voted for Bernie in the primary, and I'm ready to vote for Hillary in the general.