You are not being principled; you are not sending a message; you are not accomplishing anything of note. If you want to make a difference, realize that the Presidential race is the shiny object of electoral politics. Conservatives figured out long ago that if you control local and state elections, you can have more power than merely holding the WH.
Where are you going to be in local school board races, state senate races, gubernatorial races and all the down ticket events in 2016?; where will you be in 2018?. Channel your transformative fury to those races. If progresses claim more power at the local and State levels, then some tangible changes can start to happen.
The old argument has been, that, at the Presidential level, if Democrats can elect a centrist, well the progressive movement can push them to the left.
But what happens instead, per the Clinton and Obama administrations, is that the conservatives dominate the mid-term elections and push everything right of the right. It happens like fucking clock work. Progressive voters sit out and capitulate to the right. So, instead of saying yeah, well Trumps is no different or maybe he is a little worse but what’s its really matter—its all status quo, let’s start building a coalition to have a representative voice in 2016 AND 2018.
On that “no difference” status quo thing, remember what life was like under Bush-Cheney and how it felt to be brought to the brink of destruction (and how those words can be used and not be hyperbole)? Obama is a centrist and far from a progressive ideal but I will take these last 8 years over the preceding ones any time and any way.
And Trump-Pence could really make Bush-Cheney look like the good ole days. If you value the environment; if you have any hope of making progress on climate change; if you want to protect women’s rights and civil liberties; if you are not looking forward to another surge toward a police state; if you care about immigrants to this country and the lives of brown people abroad; if you want ACA to be expanded and improved to the benefit of millions of lower income citizens; and if you prefer not too see young Americans be killed and maimed in avoidable wars, then vote HRC and work to get a complement of progressive voices in elected offices.
Yes, I know that Hillary has hawkish tendencies, is pro-corporate and all the rest but I trust her, far more than Trump to not go off the deep neo-con end or to instigate WWIII with the Muslim world. I also see her as having an inner circle that will make better decisions and give better advice than those would be walking the corridors of power in a Trump admin. Hillary will have lunch with Elizabeth Warren and Bernie. Trump will be hanging with people who view Kansas, Florida and Texas as exemplars to be extended to the whole of the nation.