I’ve been split on Hillary Clinton since she vanquished Bernie Sanders. Half of me accepts that I have to vote for her sensible, pragmatic, Obama-continuing wonkery (along with her hawkish foreign policy instincts), and the other half can’t stand her — her cautious sidestepping of the Bernie revolution, that cackle, the Wall Street ties, the testiness, her liberal-leaning but weather-vane-ish political values, the just-revealed DNC connivance against Bernie, the eye bags, the eff-you to the Berners with her selection of Tim Kaine, her compulsively secretive nature.

My allegiance to sanity nonetheless compels me to vote for her. I want her to win despite her many flaws, and I expect that despite all the debits she’ll probably nudge out a victory. But it speaks volumes about Clinton’s appeal that even if the Gods are with her, Hillary may not manage a decisive victory against the most appalling major-party presidential candidate in American history.

And now Michael Moore‘s just-posted essay, “5 Reasons Why Trump Will Win,” has given me pause. It has really put a chill into my lower backbone. As noted, I’m inclined to believe that Hillary will probably be elected, but after reading Moore’s piece I’m wondering how solid that prediction is.

Boiled down, the five reasons favoring Trump’s election, in Moore’s view: (a) the rust-belt yokels are going to vote for Trump by a lopsided margin, and this may result in his winning four major, very decisive rust-belt states — Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin; (b) white guys will vote against her en masse as a kind of Alamo-like last stand against the femme-Nazis, LGBTs, multiculturals; (c) A lot of people despise Hillary and particularly the dynastic establishment politics she represents; (d) the depressed Bernie vote; and (e) despite their disagreement or even distaste for Trump, disenfranchised Americans are crazy enough to vote for him as a fuck-you to the system, just as Minnesota voters voted for Jessie Ventura.

Hillary Problem as explained by Moore: “Let’s face it: Our biggest problem here isn’t Trump — it’s Hillary. She is hugely unpopular — nearly 70% of all voters think she is untrustworthy and dishonest. She represents the old way of politics, not really believing in anything other than what can get you elected. That’s why she fights against gays getting married one moment, and the next she’s officiating a gay marriage. The kids [in general] don’t like her, and young women are among her biggest detractors.

“Not a day goes by that a Millennial doesn’t tell me they aren’t voting for her. No Democrat, and certainly no independent, is waking up on November 8th excited to run out and vote for Hillary the way they did the day Obama became president or when Bernie was on the primary ballot. The enthusiasm just isn’t there. And because this election is going to come down to just one thing — who drags the most people out of the house and gets them to the polls — Trump right now is in the catbird seat.

The Depressed Sanders Vote: “Stop fretting about Bernie’s supporters not voting for Clinton — we’re voting for Clinton! The polls already show that more Sanders voters will vote for Hillary this year than the number of Hillary primary voters in ’08 who then voted for Obama. This is not the problem. The fire alarm that should be going off is that while the average Bernie backer will drag him/herself to the polls that day to somewhat reluctantly vote for Hillary, it will be what’s called a ‘depressed vote‘ — meaning the voter doesn’t bring five people to vote with her. He doesn’t volunteer 10 hours in the month leading up to the election. She never talks in an excited voice when asked why she’s voting for Hillary. A depressed voter.”

This last paragraph is what really got me. Moore explains why Tim Kaine is such a non-starter for voters looking for a reason to vote for Hillary. A lot of Millenials may not even vote next November, and if they do vote and give their support to Hillary, it’ll be with reluctance because they don’t see her as being in their corner. Well, somewhat but not really.

“[For Millenials], returning to the Clinton/Bush era…is like suddenly having to pay for music, or using MySpace or carrying around one of those big-ass portable phones. They’re not going to vote for Trump; some will vote third party, but many will just stay home. Hillary Clinton is going to have to do something to give them a reason to support her — and picking an oldish, moderate, bland-o, middle-of-the-road white guy as her running mate is not the kind of edgy move that tells Millenials that their vote is important to Hillary. Having two women on the ticket — that was an exciting idea. But then Hillary got scared and has decided to play it safe. This is just one example of how she is killing the youth vote.