Let’s be perfectly honest here, Bernie never really had me, but there was a point where I switched from being for Clinton to being very much against Bernie. In this blog, I’d like to just contrast Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton in one very important way.

This is the official press release by the Sanders campaign following violence that shut down a Trump rally in Chicago. Though the Sanders campaign did not have a role in the protests that occurred, a number of groups supporting him took credit for shutting down the rally and putting the Trump campaign “on notice”. Senator Sanders’s response can be reduced to one line of that press release.

When that is what the Trump campaign is doing, we should not be surprised that there is a response.

Nowhere is there a condemnation of violence or a defense of the right of Donald Trump’s supporters to gather in peace or of Donald Trump, a private citizen, to give his (admittedly appalling and inflammatory) speech. In fact, at that time Senator Sanders and Senator Cruz were the only two candidates to fail to speak out against violent behavior regardless of which part of the political spectrum it comes from in at least some way in their initial statements.

In contrast, Hillary Clinton and her campaign have come out very strong against more recent violence and harassment at a Trump rally in San Jose. Despite there being no evidence linking Clinton supporters to these incidents (in fact, one video shows the crowd chanting “Bernie”), Clinton’s campaign manager immediately condemned the violence on Twitter. Most importantly, Hillary Clinton herself has spoken out very strongly against all violence in the political arena today. Her unconditional condemnation of violence against people exercising their right to assemble can also be summed up with a few quotes.

I condemn it by those who are taking violent protests to physical assault against Donald Trump. Now we’re seeing people who were against him responding in kind. It should all stop. It is not acceptable I don’t want to parse it. I don’t want to talk about the political implications. I want it to end. The police have a hard enough job trying to make sure that we’re able to gather and talk about the issues facing our country

It’s quite clear that only one candidate remaining deserves my respect and my vote.