I’ll start with a brief recap of my main point: If Hillary gets the nomination, and is elected, she will inadequately address the problems this country faces, that are angering people, by negotiating from the center/right and then moving right as a compromise, to give us mere half measures or quarter measures. I fear, given her New Democrat background, that she will likely use social programs and financial reform as bargaining chips.

I strongly believe that Hillary will kill the momentum that has been generated over the last eight years by Barack Obama, the first liberal (not progressive) Democrat to be president in years–and that will do more damage to the Democratic brand than four years of a Republican president would do to the country. I am not saying that four years of a Republican would not be worse for the country than four years of Hillary in the immediate; I am saying that four years of Hillary will do more long-term damage by prolonging the Democratic realignment.

Americans want real change–and they’re looking to the Democrats to provide it. But if we only put a band-aid on issues like the wealth gap and financial reform, which is essentially Hillary’s plan, Americans will not be satisfied. As much as politically-minded people remind us that change is slow, what Hillary offers is too slow. Her kind of change is weakness.

If the New Deal taught us anything it’s that unprecedented sweeping government action can happen quickly. FDR achieved significant reforms within the first hundred days of his presidency. Hillary’s supporters have not learned from Obama’s biggest blunder: negotiating from the middle with opponents on the far right. These people insist that we have to just keep making slow progress because all we can hope for are small gains. They point to the weakness of the Democratic Party since the 1970’s as evidence of their position. However, this is a common misunderstanding of history and the lesson of the Democrats’ decline from the 1970s to the 2000s.

Democrats must stop blaming their losses during these years on Democratic inaction, or strategy errors (like when Hillary-in-the-general-election supporters “recall” how Ralph Nader voters in 2000 hurt Al Gore, and argue that Bernie or Bust is naive). The fact is that the country had changed, and the Democrats couldn’t tap into it. Civil rights brought about a conservative realignment. The south, which was the political force behind the New Deal, recoiled at the overhaul that was the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. They left the Democratic Party over the next few decades joined the GOP, giving Republicans the advantage in electoral politics.

This history shouldn’t, however, teach us to have less ambition, or to settle for less when we can get more. We should still pursue big changes and broad, far-reaching legislation. We should just do so with the understanding that at a certain point we will push too far for the average voter. The best we can hope for is that by the time that happens, and the country starts to swing the other way, we have achieved something strong enough to withstand the coming realignment (like Social Security, which has withstood the Reagan realignment).

In the ’90s the Democrats figured out the prevailing narrative and adapted. Ultimately, they accepted the GOP rhetoric and economic platform–that’s what the New Democrats were; Reagan Democrats. While this move got Bill Clinton elected president (along with the fact that George H.W. Bush couldn’t fix the Reagan economy), since then, we have had a hard time recovering. Getting anything passed has not been easy since we willingly tied our legs together…

But now we face a different situation than we have in 50 years. The country is moving left out of desperation for change after years of Republican dominance. The GOP is unable to tap into this shift, like the Democrats of yesterday. Now, we must show courage and not settle for anything less than a New Deal-style overhaul. Only an overhaul will do. Bernie Sanders is the only candidate proposing such an initiative. It is not worth electing a Democrat if our party isn’t willing to go the distance. Hillary is the wrong candidate for 2015. If this were 1994, I’d vote for her in a heartbeat, but it is not. And so she will not get my vote, and I will instead write in “Bernie Sanders” across that section of my ballot.

I will now address everyone’s favorite counterpoint.

The argument I keep hearing is “the SCOTUS is up for grabs in 2016 so we must vote Hillary if she gets nominated.”

As I said, but did not elaborate on in my first piece, this is more true for 2020 and 2024. Let’s assume we live in a world where Hillary has won the primary, and angry progressive’s didn’t turn out for her in the general so she lost. It is true we might lose Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who is 82-years-old, somewhere between 2016 and 2020. However, there is nothing to suggest that any of the other justices approaching retirement (Scalia, Breyer and Kennedy) will step down with her. The other justices are all in their late 70s. Scalia, the second oldest at 79 years of age, has indicated that nothing short of dementia will lead to his resignation. Justice Breyer announced in September of this year that he will retire “eventually,” indicating nothing imminent.