The mainstream media expects Sen. Bernie Sanders’ supporters to fall in line and vote for Clinton. I am a lifelong Democrat but I will never vote for Hillary Clinton. I promise you that I am not alone.

Sanders is fighting for economic reforms, which are so desperately needed to save the middle class. Clinton’s ascendancy and expected coronation, forced down our throats by Wasserman-Schultz and the Democratic National Committee, guarantees a snarky, catastrophic end to these much-needed changes. Clinton represents the status quo and as such will surely continue to funnel our tax dollars away from the vanishing middle class via tax loopholes and policies that benefit her Wall Street cronies and her deep-pocketed donors to the Clinton Foundation. While President Barack Obama famously brought us, “Yes we can!”, Clinton’s mantra to the middle class has been, “No we can’t!”

Since I first voted in 1984, there has not been a truly progressive option for the presidency. In fact, our Democratic options have moved so far to the right that voting blue has become meaningless. For decades voters have been left with choosing between the lesser of two evils. Never again.

I voted (twice) for Obama, who unfortunately has proven to be more Republican-lite than Democratic. I will not be voting for the female version of Bush in 2016.

If Sanders gets the nomination or chooses to run as an independent, he has my vote. Otherwise I’ll write in Sanders’s name or vote for Jill Stein. Either way this lifelong Democrat is leaving the Democratic Party. Can you hear me now DNC?

Lisa Bondeson

Readfield