From a reader:

You said

"That said, I can't say I can get with the "stay home" notion. There's
just too much else at stake. A return of the Bushies simply isn't an
option."

What you fail to understand, sir, is that for a few major contingents
of the Democratic coalition, yes, yes it is an option.

I'm an employed heterosexual upper middle class medically insured
white man. I have no horse in this race. My entire life I've crusaded
for things like gender equity, fair treatment for GLBT people,
assistance to the poor, and the like. (Literally--as a five year old I
insisted on pink lettering on my birthday cake, because I defied the
idea that colors could have gender. I was a strange duck)

Hell, I even live in a place that will suffer few if any negative
repercussion from global warming compared with, say, Africa or the
Maldives.

But if I discover there's no readily available political party that
will back those preferences--no matter how strongly I feel them--there
really is no reason for me to show up. It's not my fight that'll get
lost.

Don't worry. I won't stay home. I'll just vote for the actual
socialist candidate. He won't take office, but at least I'll be able
to respect myself for not aligning with vampires on one side, and
cowards on the other.

I have no horse in this race. For me, it's simply a matter of my
desire to die with my boots on.

Sorry if I'm ranting at you, but I'm raging at the fecklessness of my
party right now.

Yup, that's fair. I can only add that another 9/11 doesn't scare me, so much as another 9/11 with someone like George W. Bush, and jingoist Congress, in power. I don't know if the country can take it.