General Discussion

You want to blame the "party elite" but the truth is that short-sighted folks have been failing to support the BEST candidate in contests between a Democrat and a Republican or in contests where the spoiler and 3rd party candidates have ZERO chance of winning. In national and statewide races, the contest is always a binary choice. Only one of two candidates will win: the Democrat or the Republican. All the others are spoilers.

When it comes right down to it, any vote (or non-vote) that does not benefit the Democratic candidate has the net effect of benefiting the GOP candidate.

Mature and realistic voters understand and accept the reality that no candidate is perfect. They also know and understand that only ONE of the candidates is BETTER than the other. And that ONE of the candidates has values that more closely align with their own. And that ONE of the candidates will help to move the political arc closer to the goals and aspirations we seek to achieve.

However, it's sad that we must deal with impatient and angry voters who think it's better to sit-out the election (in protest) or who vote for a Green candidate (in protest) and who do nothing to help ensure the victory of the BEST of the only two candidates who will win. We have a defacto two-party system. Spoiler candidates never win national elections.

In this instance, the definition of "accepting" needs to be refined and tweaked, or a different word needs to be used entirely. For the types of impatient, immature and unrealistic voters I described above (ie: the ones who do not support Democrats) they are only benefiting the GOP with their myopic strategies. They give the GOP more power to undo progress already made and to set up roadblocks for future progress.

And then, like clockwork, these non-voters and saboteurs "blame the Democrats" because the candidate wasn't perfect or wasn't "good enough" to "earn their vote" (but in all cases the Democrat was BETTER than the Republican.)