Depending on which corner of the internet you happened to be in late Tuesday morning when Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders endorsed rival Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, you either saw:
a) Democrats praising Sanders for (finally) calling for party unity in the effort to defeat Republican Donald Trump in November, or
b) Democrats (many who only joined the party so they could vote for Sanders) trashing Clinton and wondering out loud who the Clintons murdered in order to have this happen. Or something similarly irrational.
"Secretary Clinton has won the Democratic nominating process, and I congratulate her for that," Sanders said, according to NPR. "She will be the Democratic nominee for president and I intend to do everything I can to make certain she will be the next president of the United States.
The Sierra Club, for example, praised the move and thanked Sanders for pushing Clinton on issues important to progressives..
“Secretary Clinton and Senator Sanders made this a campaign about ideas," Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said in a written statement. "Ideas on how to stop climate disruption while speeding our transition to clean, renewable energy and leaving fossil fuels in the ground. Ideas on the importance of rejecting dangerous trade deals like the Trans Pacific Partnership. And ideas on how best to help those whose homes and lives have been wrecked by pollution."
Clinton in the past has supported the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing, as well as a the aforementioned Trans-Pacific Partnership, something that Sanders supporters are quick to point out as evidence that she's not really much of a Democrat.
Among younger voters, there's been lackluster support of Clinton; Sanders' policy positions, including a $15 per hour minimum wage, universal health care and free college tuition for all, appealed to many of them, while older Democrats were drawn to Clinton.
In Florida on Tuesday, her campaign sought to play up the support she does have among students by issuing a media release featuring the voices of young people who formerly supported Sanders, but are now voting for Clinton.
"During the primary, Bernie's progressive platform inspired me and so many others to get involved in the political system," said Molly Vise, a recent UF graduate and cofounder of the group Progressive Gators. "Bernie's political revolution will continue if we all work together to elect a Democrat to the White House. I believe that Hillary Clinton will deliver on the progressive promise of the Democratic platform and build a system that works for everyone, not just a handful of people. Secretary Clinton is a tireless leader of the American people and I am proud to say that I am now with her."
Yet even as her supporters called for coalescence, many Sanders supporters took to social media to decry Clinton, and vowed to throw their support behind Green Party candidate Jill Stein or, in some cases, Libertarian Gary Johnson.
Trump's campaign also took to the internet to trash Clinton, and they did so using Sanders' own past criticisms of her, including Wall Street ties, past positions on LGBT equality and inconsistency over the minimum wage.
Some advocacy groups were quick to point out the work Democrats have ahead of them in terms of demonstrating the stark differences between Clinton and Trump, namely on immigration.
“We now have two presumptive nominees from both parties that offer two very distinct visions for the future of our country," said Ben Monterroso of the immigration advocacy group Mi Familia Vota. "American voters have a clear choice and it’s up to us now to decide which is the future we want to live in."
This article appears in Jul 7-14, 2016.