With Bernie Sanders’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton has come a split among his “progressive” supporters. Some, perhaps most, say that it is time for Berniecrats to unite behind Hillary and do all they can to defeat Donald Trump. They further say that Hillary is the lesser evil and that voting for Trump is voting for a proto- or even full-blown fascist who will bring totalitarianism to the United States.

Others say no, Hillary is too corrupt and too much in Wall Street’s pocket to ever vote for her. And, in addition, her campaign is one aimed at extorting votes from Berniecrats by stoking fear of Trump among them.

They are shifting their loyalties to Jill Stein, the likely Green Party nominee, or even to Donald Trump, to ensure that the candidate, whose supporters “rigged” the Democratic primary and beat Bernie Sanders by cheating and conducting a primary that literally de-frauded Bernie’s supporters of their time and money spent in his support, will not profit from the perfidy successfully executed during the primary process and the extortion they are attempting now.

Often the argument between those who think all of Bernie’s progressives should support Hillary, and those who think they ought to vote for Jill Stein, or for Donald Trump, comes down to the lesser evil. Hillary’s supporters say that Trump is so execrable, and so dangerous to our democracy in so many ways, that she with her extensive national security experience, and her likelihood of appointing “liberal” Supreme Court Justices is certainly to be preferred as much the lesser evil compared to Trump, even if one disagrees with her on economic policy, corruption, and foreign policy issues.

The lesser evil argument is a disputable one. I think that both Hillary and Trump carry the danger of totalitarianism with them. Chris Hedges follows Sheldon Wolin in making the case that we already live under an inverted totalitarian regime. And who is the preferred candidate of the “establishment” of that regime, if not Hillary Clinton?

As for Trump, if there is a historical personage he most reminds one of it is Mussolini himself: the patron saint of both fascism and crony capitalism, and one of the historical masters of outrageous bluster. Is there any norm or constitutional provision that he would have the slightest respect for if he had to hit back against opposition that was giving him difficulty?

Would he hesitate to punish people he considered enemies using any tool available to him as President of the United States? If he were president would we see a continuation of the fervent nationalism and blatant racism we have seen in his campaign? Would he empower rightist movement organizations to routinely initiate violence against movements they were opposed to?

All of these questions can be raised seriously about a Trump presidency. So, a reasonable expectation from a Hillary presidency is an extension and strengthening of the neoliberal inverted totalitarian regime we already live under; but a reasonable expectation from a Trump presidency is a full-blown fascist regime in less time than it will take Hillary to do the same thing, since neoliberalism likes to hide the true nature of its inverted totalitarianism under democratic camouflage.

So, which is the greater evil? Do you prefer to be quickly cooked or boiled slowly? Of course, a slow boil may give you a better chance of escaping the pot eventually provided you understand you are on slow boil, while from a quick boil there is no escape if you cannot jump out of the pot. But still this “lesser evil” choice is at best a marginal one, not so obvious for us frogs as supporters of Clinton would have you believe

So, back again to calls for Berniecrats to not lose any more time in choosing to get boiled slowly. Imagine that every Bernie supporter follows him into the Hillary camp. This then gets reflected in the polls in decreasing support for Stein and in decreasing numbers of undecideds. Then what does Hillary do?

I think she continues to run to the right, as she is now doing. She softens public commitments already made to policies progressives favor, and she runs to the right to get as many Republicans and neoliberals as she can to come to the polls to vote for her.

But running to the right involves no commitments Berniecrats want from her; nor does it involve her making promises to progressives that will be costly for her to break later. There are no: “read my lips; no new taxes” types of promises to persuade the Berniecrats to give her their support.

Hillary running to the right will not feed the peaceful revolution to create American democracy that Bernie supporters hoped for and worked for. So, why should any of us follow Bernie’s advice or any other demands or pleas, and support Hillary as he has done?

Shouldn’t we instead continually oppose her, as well as Trump, and also support Jill Stein, unless and until Hillary makes us an offer we can’t refuse, in which case, we can vote for her, if by that time she still has a better chance to beat Trump than Jill Stein does?

After all, whether she makes that offer to Bernie supporters is up to her. She can do it tomorrow, or next week, or next month, or the week before the election, or she can never make it at all. It is up to her. It is her choice whether to make that offer or not. It is her choice whether Jill Stein gets enough votes to place Hillary’s election in jeopardy.

I say we wait for it, and wait for her to do enough to persuade us that she is stating her actual intentions, rather than just giving us some malarkey to get elected. While waiting, we ought to support Jill Stein, or if we cannot, then remain undecided.

That means telling people where we stand, and replying to all those polls we get in our e-mails with our Jill Stein or undecided view about who we’ll vote for. It means not contributing to Hillary or to any Democratic Party Committees. (If you like certain Democratic candidates for office, such as Tim Canova, for example, then donate to them directly, not through any organizations that may dispense your money to other Democrats who will not stand with the revolution as we go forward.)

Also, we should not do anything for the Democratic Party or for groups that may make common cause with Hillary or neoliberal establishment candidates. Bernie supporters have to communicate with our actions that we will not be with the Party until it is with us. That means agreeing to policies we need badly, such as enhanced Medicare for All with no co-pays and no deductibles, hugely expanded SS benefits, a massive infrastructure and Green jobs program, a Manhattan project to replace fossil fuel consumption with renewable energy consumption, and a Federal Job Guarantee program.

It also means action against outrages like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the attacks on net neutrality, legislation designed to deny or hinder our right to know what is in our food, or legislation facilitating fracking, or any other business activity that is harmful to the environment or to the climate. You get the idea.

Keep the pressure for progressive alternatives and against destructive neoliberal initiatives on while withholding your support for Hillary. It doesn’t really come down to that “lesser evil” choice until you’re in the voting booth.

Until then, say that you’re undecided, and even if you’re not, then lie to the pollsters about your decision so Hillary’s campaign doesn’t conclude that they have your vote. Disrupt its feedback loop from poll results to campaign strategy and tactics so they do not feel secure about running to the right.

Our relations with Hillary and the Democrats are still an ongoing negotiation. We want many things out of them, including abandoning neoliberalism, and they are refusing to negotiate. But if enough of the 13 million who voted for Bernie will communicate “Jill Stein” or “undecided” to the pollsters and the media, then Hillary can’t trust that she has our vote and is more likely to seek our support and tell us what we need to hear.

If and when that happens, we need to be careful not to interpret mere gestures toward our concerns, or ambiguous policy proposals, or support for principles as what we need to hear. The real thing can only be specific commitments to policies that will clearly solve our various problems and wrest control of our political system from the Wall Street and multinational corporations that have seized it.

Unless we get those commitments we will know that Hillary is definitely not serious about undertaking the kinds of policies we need to see in a president. And then, we either ought not to vote for her, or if we are persuaded that she is indeed the lesser evil, then we ought to support her only when we vote and not signal to the Democrats beforehand that we are likely to do that.

In short, the interest of Berniecrats lies in keeping Hillary and her campaign guessing, not on declaring our surrender now. So, let’s not do that.

Hillary Clinton badly wants to win the presidency; as badly as we want to end the reign of neoliberalism. Perhaps if we insist on not following Bernie’s advice, this will induce her to trade the one for an explicit promise to do the other. If so, then the hard work of making her stick to her commitments will finally begin.