A week after the New York primary, I had lunch with a colleague whom I hadn’t seen for a year. We are both avowed feminists and members of a joke secret society, Women Who Get Shit Done (we have badges, that’s about it); she started talking about having voted for Hillary Clinton, in that confiding way one does when presuming the other person feels the same. I had to stop her and gently let her know that I had voted for Bernie, and even with the (contested) results in, I was still Sanders. She immediately backtracked and revealed, as if disclosing a shameful secret, that “Bernie’s positions” — voted against the Iraq, against fracking, for banking regulation — “align much closer to my own than Hillary’s.” Why on earth vote for Hillary then? I asked, astounded. The best she could come up with was “My daughter really wants me to vote for Hillary.”

My friend, novelist Holly LeCraw, and I started a public endorsement group, Writers 4 Bernie, and we’re finding that although Bernie supporters are out there, many aren’t “out.” It’s a dirty secret, it seems, to not vote “feminist”; a famous writer who has spoken publicly in favor of Bernie declined to join our group because “my wife is for Hillary.” Scores of people I know are “for” Bernie but don’t want to make these views public. A few described themselves as “reluctant Hillary voters” because they, like my friend, like Bernie’s positions better but feel the need to “unite” behind Hillary. There were a few mutterings that we should have called our group Writers Against Trump.

A Trump presidency is indeed not an impossibility. But if that happens, it’s not on Writers4Bernie; it’s on Hillary for being a weak candidate. And likely on the DNC for not supporting the candidate who polls stronger against all three of the Republicans–Bernie beats Trump by double digits while Hillary is within the margin of error against Trump and loses to Kasich. Simply put, the superdelegate system and closed primaries may succeed in pushing Clinton to victory as the party’s nominee, but it’s at the peril of wishing away the most recent Gallup poll that showed a record 43% of American voters identify as independents, a demographic that overwhelmingly prefers Bernie, as seen in his sweeping wins in the caucuses and open primaries where independents are allowed to vote. So why stick to an outdated, confusing, likely corrupt nominating process that ignores voters’ actual preferences?