Editor, Register-Mail: To the progressive Democrats leaning toward Hillary because she’s “electable” and all the disgruntled Independents considering Trump because he “tells it like it is,” I urge you to put your heart and your brain together and vote for Bernie Sanders.

Bernie is the only candidate who understands the situation America is facing and who has the political will and dedication to take on the challenge. He started his campaign by focusing on the need to overturn Citizens United because he knows the electoral system must be fair if democracy is to survive. And his opposition to “dark money” and the power of Wall Street reflects how deeply corrupt our political system has become. His policies on education, healthcare, family leave, climate change and other areas represent an aspirational vision toward which we should be aiming. He has no illusions that these can be enacted easily or quickly, until there is a deeper political transformation that recaptures the Congress for the American people.

Hillary, to her credit, shares some of the same aspirations, but she is fatally compromised as part of the dominant power structure in Washington. And people know it, as her failing grades on “trust” demonstrate. She would pursue token progressive social policies, but only if they do not fundamentally rock the boat. She is well meaning but ultimately an insider, with all the compromises and limitations that stem from that position.

And she’ll lose in November because frustrated white working-class voters will abandon the Democratic Party for Donald Trump.

Trump is a dangerous demagogue. He exploits the frustrations of people abandoned by the economic transformations of the past half-century and whose hopes for the next generation have been so brutally crushed. He is skilled at whipping up anger and the fear that underlies it, and directing them against other Americans. Like men of privilege before him, he seeks to divide those less powerful by pitting them against each other along racial, ethnic and gender lines. He claims his “outsider” status as a billionaire non-politician makes him independent. But, at the end of the day, he is part of the structure of power that skews the economic and political system.

Both Trump and Sanders address the frustration and distrust of the electorate. But Bernie unites Americans, lifting ourselves up together, where Trump offers only nostalgia for the majority culture of the past and bitter divisions among the people. — David Amor, Galesburg