Bernie Sanders still wields influence among his most fervent supporters and millions of voters. Across the nation, Bernie lovers continue to attend rallies, whether they’re for Hillary Clinton or another candidate he’s stumping for. Since the Democratic Convention last July, a sizable number of Bernie voters have steadfastly refused to support Hillary, much to the chagrin of the Democratic party.

In Iowa over the weekend, a college sophomore introducing Bernie had to be escorted off the stage after he strongly criticized Hillary and her policies.

“While the part-time reality star and full-time bigot Donald Trump thinks that hard-working immigrants are what’s wrong with our country, he fails to even talk about this issue. But, unfortunately, Hillary doesn’t care about this issue either.”

Speaker Kaleb Vanfosson then said that the only people or organizations that can trust Clinton are the military-industrial complex, big banks, and “her good friend Henry Kissinger.”

What’s interesting about this is that his harsh words garnered him applause rather than boos. At one minute, 28 seconds into his speech, a man emerged from behind the stage and escorted him off. A YouTube video of the event showed the stage from an upper vantage point, without any pans of the audience. Based on the applause and acoustics, it is apparent that the campaign event was small.

Democrats and non-Democratic progressives have realized that in the 2016 election, there is no such thing as a “lesser evil.” To a lot of voters, they’re both equally abhorrent.

Hillary Clinton Deleted 30,000 Emails But Demands Transparency From FBI https://t.co/cU4nzqeFJ5 #BringBernieBack #HillaryForPrison — Reno Berkeley (@RenoBerkeley) November 3, 2016

On the Republican side, we have Donald Trump, an accused child rapist, reality TV star, and, as the Wall Street Journal notes, a businessman known for stiffing contractors who perform work for him. Trump has stirred up the dregs of our society with his inflammatory rhetoric against minorities, immigrants, women and at one point, mocked a reporter with a disability because he didn’t like what he had to say. In a nutshell, to the average person, Trump appears to be a megalomaniac con artist who will do or say whatever he wants to make himself look good in his own eyes.

Oh, yeah, he’s been caught in lie after lie on a number of occasions, as well.

And then we have Hillary Clinton. We could’ve have Bernie Sanders, but the political establishment was bound and determined to get her the nomination, if the WikiLeaks email trove is anything to go by.

Clinton has been caught in several lies, admitted to having a public and a private position on issues, deleted thousands of emails, had her staffers hammer phones, and used BleachBit on computer hard drives.

As Secretary of State, she oversaw the Honduras coup, had a direct hand in the assassination of Libyan dictator Gaddafi, supported efforts to depose Bashir al-Assad of Syria, and seems to be gearing up for a war with Russia with her “blame Russia for WikiLeaks” mentality.

So, it’s no wonder voters young and old this election year are left grasping for someone to believe it. As Heavy notes, some Bernie supporters just can’t get behind the Green Party’s Jill Stein and are writing Bernie in, regardless of whether their votes are counted.

And in the last days before the election, voters are being bombarded with information from all sides. It’s hard enough to know where we stand with Hillary Clinton, but the weird occult “Spirit Cooking” stuff, Steve Pieczenik’s YouTube video about the alleged Clinton coup, and Anthony Weiner’s sex scandal that leads back to Hillary are enough to make your head spin.

Even Bernie’s support of Hillary doesn’t make sense, but there’s a silver lining in all of this. Bernie awakened a sleeping giant. He awakened a movement that had been lying dormant for years — decades perhaps. It rustled a bit in 2011, but couldn’t fully get out of bed. But in 2015 and 2016, Bernie Sanders made it so that people no longer feared participating in the political process. He made it okay to question the status quo, and he inspired millions of people to pay attention, speak out against political corruption, and even run for office.

Does Hillary Clinton Support The DAPL, Or Clean Drinking Water? https://t.co/mo687JBU0O — Reno Berkeley (@RenoBerkeley) November 5, 2016

It took courage for young Vanfosson to get up on stage and criticize Hillary Clinton so forcefully, especially since Bernie didn’t agree with it. Bernie urged voters to look beyond the candidates’ personalities and look at the policies that each person supports. The problem with that, though, is that voters are looking beyond Clinton’s personality. They’re looking at the WikiLeaks emails to find out what she really believes, and voters have made some unpleasant discoveries.

They’re finding out that the big banks that have made donations to the Clinton Foundation are also financing the Dakota Access Pipeline. Voters are discovering that Hillary will likely change her position after the election and support the Trans-Pacific Partnership — an agreement Bernie has vehemently spoken out against. They’ve discovered, via WikiLeaks independent outlets like The Intercept, that she is proud to have brought fracking to the world. And much of our courage to express our outrage is thanks to Bernie himself. The man who is now trying to get Hillary elected.

[Featured Photo by John Minchillo/AP Images]