As someone who recognizes Bernie Sanders as the best candidate to represent my progressive beliefs and values, I want to be perfectly clear with those who try to bully, guilt or frighten me into supporting Hillary Clinton: I am not obligated to support any member of any party for president if I do not agree with the values he or she represents, or the judgment and experience he or she offers.

Sanders has always shown consistency and integrity throughout his career. He has advocated for working class and marginalized people in words and actions and has literally put his body on the line for what he believes. Clinton is an opportunist. A centrist in the best of times, her air of entitlement to the presidency is belittling and condescending, as is her tone toward Sanders and people who believe in the radical change we desperately need.

She represents a nexus of the worst things that both major political parties have forced on our world: a neoliberal trade policy that has ossified our economy in a relentless race to the bottom and a neoconservative foreign policy that has committed this country to endless war. Clinton, and her husband before her, represent a party that has reached the end of its relevance by abandoning the people for whom it claims to be the champion.

— RM Farmer