And let's be fucking honest, if Hillary Clinton had ran on basically the platform of Joe Lieberman circa 2004, she'd have still won this damn nomination. It's all about the awful other guy with the Democratic party and never their own candidate. I find that extremely troubling and it leads to the low-turnout midterms and random right-wing Presidential pivots that nobody on the left happened to want (TPP or Grand Bargain, anyone?). It's lazy.
I think you're confusing correlation with causation here. Because, I mean, in 2008, I think very few people were voting against John McCain when they voted for Barack Obama. That election was all about voting FOR Obama. And he won comfortably. By your logic, that means Democrats should've shown up to the polls two years later for the 2010 midterms. But that didn't happen. A Republican wave election happened.
Anyway, I agree, it would be preferable to vote for someone as opposed to against someone, but if we're complaining about having to vote for people to keep awful candidates away from the Oval Office, maybe we should be complaining about the other party continuing to put up awful candidates(three of the last five GOP candidates have been W or Trump). I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't think I've ever defended Hillary as an ideal candidate. I've defended her as competent, intelligent, in command of the details and nuances of many issues, and politically on the right side of many, but not all, of the issues I care about. I also allow that some of the concerns you raise are valid, though overhyped, concerns. I acknowledge that she's more hawkish and interventionist on foreign policy than I would like(and this ties into the Clinton Foundation stuff). I acknowledge that I'm not sure what she's going to do w/TPP. I acknowledge that I would honestly vote for a third Obama term before Hillary if it were an option.
But, taking everything into consideration, I conclude that, while I don't know if she'll keep all of her campaign promises(what politician does?), I think she'll keep some of them. I think she'll some good for a lot of people, even if her positions on foreign policy, free trade, etc aren't ideal. I can live with her. I can't live with Donald Trump. I'm sorry, but it can't be ignored.
Call me crazy, but I think Republicans actually pay far more attention to the actual platform than Democratic voters. One attempt at "amnesty" derailed Marco Rubio for most of the race, etc. You can call it needless bitching or wanting to be righter-than-thou but that sort of arguably trivial stance actually matters a great deal to those people. Clinton got a lot of voters that never learned who the hell Sanders even was or that merely chose her because they felt she would do better against the Republican nominee. Neither of those are actual informed policy reasoning for getting behind a candidate and it's explicitly laid out in both primary polling and even recent polling where a great deal of Clinton's backers can't even name a single policy proposal. It's shit like this that just leads to a disappointing Presidency. Like making sure you get pizza instead of steak for dinner and then not actually looking at what type of pizza it happens to be as you're already satisfied with the outcome.
You're trying to argue that people at Trump rallies pay a lot of attention to the platform? You think they could name policy proposals? I'm really not sure about that considering Trump has never uttered a policy proposal other than The Wall(and maybe his pretty much trickle-down tax plan). If anyone really wanted to know what the GOP platform looks like, they'd have to read the actual document(which is available for anyone online). You think these people at Trump rallies are reading that document? I think the platform they care about is a platform of racism. They cheer for building a wall to keep the Mexicans out(that's why they're against amnesty) and instituting a policy to ban Muslims.
I also think you're selling a lot of Democrats short when you say that a great deal of us can't name a policy proposal. $15 minimum wage. Free tuition for state colleges. Equal pay for women. A major initiative to strengthen our infrastructure(bridges, roads, etc). A public option added to the healthcare plan. An attempt, if she can get Congress to play ball, to at long last institute even moderate gun control measures(more background checks, closing the gun show loophole, banning assault weapons again, etc). Investments in green and renewable energy. The implied preservation of Obama's executive orders regarding immigration and perhaps an attempt at passing legislation to solidify those policies(good luck with that though). The promise to appoint judges to overturn Citizens United and defend Roe v Wade. And more. I think a lot of people could name those things.