Those football coaches don't make mistakes that lead to thousands of deaths and the erosion of civil rights for millions of people.

This all matters a lot to me not because I care if someone I backs wins. In fact, in primaries I seldom pick the winner. Big deal.

It matters to me because lives are on the line. It also matters to me because climate-related choices we make or fail to make will affect the quality of my son's life. It matters because the integrity of our elections, and with it the integrity of our democracy, is at stake. Our most basic freedoms are at stake.

You can't really say that about the sports analogy.

Because it means that much to me I spent a great deal of time, money and effort helping people I considered to be particularly smart, caring and reasonable to win against people who came off particularly nasty, greedy and corrupt. In cases where I saw someone on "my side" acting in particularly nasty, greedy and corrupt manner, I focused my attention to oppose that person as well. In a few cases I chose not to take a stand because no candidate was very good. When I see people advocating destruction of civil rights or policies that lead to illegal wars based on lies, I consider opposition to them extremely important and I have no intention of keeping my comments regarding such a person polite.