No one — not Biden, not Sanders — is owed the support of Warren voters, because no politician ever deserves anything other than our utmost scrutiny. No matter what we might believe about a particular individual’s political potential, electing a U.S. president is not a popularity contest, and that’s true no matter who you support.

I wouldn’t call voting sacred, because there’s no need to mystify or deify what should be a simple and mundane process, but it is a duty that calls in a democracy, especially one as dysfunctional as ours. If you choose to answer that call (and there are totally legit reasons not to), it comes with a responsibility to honor yourself, your beliefs, your vision for the future of the people who live on all sides of our national borders. Whether or not we’re super, the United States is a global power, and our elections (especially presidential ones) can have global consequences.

If you believed Warren represented the kind of leader we need at the head of our nation, it’s hard to see how Biden possibly embodies the same things. To me, nothing captures this tension better than the fact that Biden is being financially backed by Wall Street, the very same people who Warren launched her political star fighting against. Wall Street’s role in causing the 2008 recession is clear, and that economic crisis helped determine the bleak prospects of entire generations of young people today.

Warren had a contentious relationship with President Barack Obama’s administration over what she saw as its inadequate response to that crisis. Even before the ’08 crash, she had an ongoing feud with Biden over his willingness to side with banks as a lawmaker, setting the stage for her late role as the squeaky wheel on a commission that was tasked with overseeing the Wall Street bailout. Years later, she still seemed to think the response was ultimately a failure.

“Sure, the banks are more profitable than ever, they are bigger than ever, the stock market is through the roof,” she said in 2019. “But across this country, there are people who still pay the price for a financial crisis that they didn't cause and that they never had a chance to survive.… That's not a success.”

Just days before she dropped out, Warren was similarly harsh in her criticism of Biden, saying, “No matter how many Washington insiders tell you to support him, nominating their fellow Washington insider will not meet this moment."

"Nominating a man who says we do not need any fundamental change in this country will not meet this moment,” she said. “Nominating someone who wants to restore the world before Donald Trump, when the status quo has been leaving more and more people behind for decades, is a big risk for our party and our country.”

Warren knows that Biden is a dangerous prospect as a Democratic nominee. His “battle for the soul of this nation” is poetically framed, but Warren’s right that his entire campaign is predicated on ousting Trump and that a Biden administration would be ill-equipped to grapple with what’s necessary to change the system that produced Trump — even if it could successfully contend with the president himself.

Stay up-to-date on the 2020 election. Sign up for the Teen Vogue Take!

Want more from Teen Vogue? Check this out: Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders Stood Together on Radical Progressive Ideas in the July Democratic Debate