2016-09-26 – Only Republicans face a lesser-of-two-evils election. Democrats have a candidate who can reliably be trusted to advance all or most of their agenda. Republicans do not.

The only beef democrats could really have with Hillary Clinton is a worry that she might not move fast enough. She always factors in headwinds. Not all Democrats do this. But headwinds or not, she would appoint good judges to the Supreme Court and lesser courts. She would advance, not destroy, Obamacare. She would bring financing of higher education into the twenty-first century. She would promote, not obstruct, racial and gender equality, including support for LGBT rights, women’s health, and immigration reform. She would work for solutions for global climate change, not deny its existence. She would support Dodd-Frank and improved regulation of the financial sector, including Glass-Steagall and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She would promote infrastructure improvement and the growth of green industry. The list goes on and on.

Democrats should be mostly happy with this. Republicans would not be. And that’s why this is a lesser-of-two evils election for them.

Because, while Donald Trump says that he opposes these things, Republicans don’t really have any basis for trusting that he would—or even that he would know how. He could swing too liberal. Some of his statements have suggested that. He could swing too conservative. Many of his statements have suggested that. And most of all, he’s been a racist and sexist know-nothing whose first instinct is to lash out cruelly at people who inconvenience him in any way.

So Republicans have a candidate who can’t be relied on to advance their agenda, who lies, who’s angry, and racist. They’ve got to be conflicted. That’s why major Republican newspapers are endorsing Hillary Clinton as the lesser-of-two-evils. If Hillary is elected, we can at least be sure that there will be a 2020 election and the Republicans can try again.

Democrats, on the other hand, have a candidate who has consistently supported the cause. The fact that she works with the other side should be seen as a plus, not a minus. That is how things get done. That is how the country can be made stronger together. That is how we chip away at the cynicism of the right that brought us Donald Trump as the candidate of the right.

It’s not a hard decision. For a Democrat. The folks who should be having the hard time are Republicans.