Strategists from Hillary Clinton’s primary super PAC have announced their intention to begin targeting voters who support Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein.

Apparently having abandoned any attempt to get their candidate to stop lying, obfuscating and alienating voters, her increasingly-nervous campaign promoters are now opting to blame third parties for Mrs. Clinton’s almost superhuman ability to consistently lose the trust and enthusiasm of the American public.

A mere five weeks ago, a convention bump and Donald Trump’s especially pungent string of verbal diarrhea had boosted the struggling Hillary 2016 campaign back up to an impressive eight-point lead. The Democratic nominee had been fighting for every inch of ground prior to the DNC convention in light of her email scandals and the punishing torrent of WikiLeaks drops, so that comfortable lead let the Democrats breathe a sigh of relief for a moment. Now, that lead has effectively vanished, and Clinton now trails Trump in several key states.

So needless to say, the old campaign war machines are getting dusted off and rolled out, the mummies of the neoliberal think tank are having their veins refilled with the fresh blood of virgin maidens, and the drums of fear are reverberating throughout the kingdom.

Gary Johnson call your office. Clinton coming at your voters @jmartnyt https://t.co/mijj4Vvdi2 — Michael Tackett (@tackettdc) September 16, 2016

“We’ll be launching a multimillion-dollar digital campaign that talks about what’s at stake and how a vote for a third-party candidate is a vote for Donald Trump, who is against everything these voters stand for,” said Justin Barasky, a strategist for Priorities USA Action.

A vote for a third-party candidate is a vote for Donald Trump. Get used to hearing that.

Want to vote for Jill Stein? Too bad. A vote for Jill Stein is a vote for Donald Trump.

A vote for Gary Johnson is a vote for Donald Trump.

Staying home and playing Undertale instead of voting is a vote for Donald Trump.

Want a hot pocket for lunch? You mean you want Donald Trump for lunch.

And I guess a vote for Donald Trump is, like, I dunno, seven votes for Donald Trump or something.

You’re going to be hearing this until November, and not just from the “multimillion-dollar digital campaign” (aka paid internet forum shills) financed by Clinton’s super PACs, but from the mainstream media as well. The more brutally Hillary mangles her own campaign, the more loudly they’ll scream it.

The more HRC's Super PACs spend trying to bully people into failed 2-party system, the more it'll strengthen our will to #BreakThe2PartyTrap — Dr. Jill Stein (@DrJillStein) September 16, 2016

So I’d like to take this opportunity to remind you, dear reader, what your third-party vote is actually a vote for, should you choose to use your inalienable right to vote in that way. Hold onto this, because it’s gonna be a hell of an onslaught.

Voting third party instead of voting for Hillary Clinton is a vote to restore democracy to America. Voting third party instead of voting for Hillary Clinton is a vote against more rigged primaries and more forcefully-installed neoliberal puppets in the Democratic party. Voting third party instead of voting for Hillary Clinton is a vote to communicate clearly and unequivocally to the Democratic party that it is not entitled to your vote, and that it can’t keep ignoring what you want in favor of warmongering and corporate cronyism. That it needs to shape up and start building a platform of peace and harmony instead of robbery and destruction.

If enough people vote third party instead of crumbling underneath the “but Trump!” fearmongering, we will see a very, very different election in 2020. The DNC will be acutely aware that they can’t pull the wool over the public’s eyes anymore, and they’ll be forced to start holding real primaries free of institutionalized manipulations and voter tampering if they ever want to win another election in any branch of government again. We need to stop crawling back to them like a pathetic battered woman crawling back to her abusive ex and demand better for ourselves.

And remember this also, dear reader: the Democrats don’t fear Donald Trump. They fear us. They don’t fear the billionaire narcissist; they’ve had plenty of experience dealing with those. They fear these unpredictable, bright-eyed revolutionaries who won’t settle for anything less than sanity and accountability from their government. Who won’t stop asking questions, who won’t stop shining light on the shadows, and who won’t stop demanding what’s right and what’s just.

We don’t fold to their bullying and gas-lighting tactics to force us in line this time. Not in 2016, and not ever. We will turn this thing around, and we’ll do it on our terms, not theirs.

Thanks for reading.

[Featured Image by Alex Wong/Getty Images]