[Special] Talking Points Memo: If You're Really Against Trump, You Have To Be For Hillary

By Josh Marshall:

But even with all that said, it's a binary choice. It certainly helps to some degree depriving Trump of a single vote. But by not voting for Clinton you're also depriving the only person who has a chance to beat Trump of a vote.

Now, this isn't to say that voting for Gary Johnson is some kind of moral failure. Lots of committed Libertarians have been voting for the Libertarian candidate for decades. But as a way to take a 'Never Trump' stand, nope. It doesn't cut it. Same goes for writing in Mitt Romney, or George H.W. Bush or Unicorn.

I have little doubt that for years into future, probably decades, this election will be seen as a historical testing moment for the country, one people will very much want to say they were on the right side of. For Democrats, this part of it's easier since they were never going to vote for any Republican. For Republicans and swing voters it's a different story.

You can't compare something as vast as the Civil Rights Movement to a single antic election. But I see an analogy here, inasmuch as still decades later countless people who were reliable supporters of Jim Crow still try to pretend that somehow they weren't. This is that time when the Republican party, one of America's two major parties going back over 150 years, nominated a white nationalist candidate who beyond abhorrent policy positions is clearly not mentally fit to serve as President. His mental, psychological unfitness for the office is for a million reasons but most tangibly because of the awesome destructive power entrusted, with few if any real checks, to the President in his role as Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. military with its vast nuclear arsenal. (Thinking it's a terrible idea or even immoral is not a sufficient reason to refuse a president's order for a nuclear strike.)

It's simple. If you really oppose Trump, the danger he poses and what he represents, you need to vote for Hillary Clinton, difficult a step as that may be for many. It's that simple.

The Full Story (August 7, 2016)

(Editor's Note: italic emphasis in original, bolding emphasis is mine)