Let's start from the top.

Donald Trump would be a disaster and an embarrassment for our country if he were elected president.

Donald Trump is not going to be President. He's not running a real campaign, he's lost the money and organization races already, and he's pretty much doing himself in with each campaign gaffe he commits. The electoral college setup favors Clinton. He is the bogeyman.

His campaign is not based on anything of substance — improving the economy, our education system, healthcare or the environment. It is based on bigotry.

Politicians say all sorts of things when they're trying to win elections. Admittedly, Trump's choices are bad ones. But even good campaign choices will lead to bad government, as many of our previous Presidents have put on full display.

In these difficult times, we need a president who will bring our nation together, not someone who will divide us by race or religion, not someone who lacks an understanding of what our Constitution is about.

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, is one of the most important architects of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which takes sovereign US authority and grants it to unelected ISDS courts. I'm sure she knows the Constitution, though.

On virtually every major issue facing this country and the needs of working families, Clinton’s positions are far superior to Trump’s.

Both candidates' positions are all over the place. Trump has said, for instance, that he would leave Social Security alone; Clinton has offered a hedged position that she would turn Social Security into a welfare program. But with Sanders' editorial we are back to trusting the words politicians use while they campaign for office. Let's not make that mistake, shall we? It's best to start with who politicians are, ignoring what they say.

Donald Trump is a charlatan, to be sure, a small-time crook and a publicity hound. Hillary Clinton is a skillful syndicate leader with an insatiable need for money, a warmongering attitude that would in all likelihood turn the Middle East into a wasteland, and a great penchant for secrecy. Her "plans" are of no consequence, she repays favors when they're in the six-figure-and-up category, and she throws constituencies under the bus at her convenience to satisfy the basically right-wing Methodist perspective upon the world she inherited from Hugh Rodham, her father. She will be our next President.

Our campaigns worked together to produce the most progressive platform in the history of American politics. Trump’s campaign wrote one of the most reactionary documents.

Platforms don't mean anything.

Clinton understands that Citizens United has undermined our democracy. She will nominate justices who are prepared to overturn that Supreme Court decision, which made it possible for billionaires to buy elections.

Really? Judging from Clinton's donor list, she appears as one of the beneficiaries of Citizens United. Why would she want to appoint justices who would do that?

Her court appointees also would protect a woman’s right to choose, workers’ rights, the rights of the LGBT community, the needs of minorities and immigrants and the government’s ability to protect the environment.

Trump, on the other hand, has made it clear that his Supreme Court appointees would preserve the court’s right-wing majority.

Why does Senator Sanders think he knows this with any degree of certainty? Secretary Clinton appointed a vice-president who used to like carving out exceptions to a woman's right to an abortion, when he was Governor of Virginia.

(We'll skip the parts comparing "positions" below this. Once again, 1) Trump won't win, and 2) Clinton can't be trusted. From Doug Henwood's My Turn: "Hillary is a model of position production, but there's little reason to trust any of her proposals. I've chosen instead to look at her history, which is not inspiring"(p. 125).)

I understand that many of my supporters are disappointed by the final results of the nominating process, but being despondent and inactive is not going to improve anything.

What would challenging electoral fraud do? And how about realignment? Realignment, it seems to me, is better than the current strategy, which involves 1) losing to neoliberal Democrats and then 2) using fear of neoliberal Republicans to keep neoliberal Democrats in power. Does Senator Sanders have an opinion on realignment?

Going forward and continuing the struggle is what matters.

Is that what we're doing here?

And, in that struggle, the most immediate task we face is to defeat Donald Trump.

Donald Trump himself seems to have this "immediate task" well in hand. So why Hillary Clinton, with all of her obvious advantages, needs to have Bernie Sanders go the "extra mile" to complete this done deed is beyond me.