Logically, there should be no difference between pulling the lever to kill one innocent person (while saving more lives) and hurling one fat man to his death. But, as author Sarah Bakewell notes, “Surveys suggest that up to 90 percent of us would throw the lever…while a similar percentage think the Fat Man should not be thrown off the bridge.”

The reason for this disparity, explains Bakewell, is that the “thought of seizing a random bystander, ignoring his screams, wrestling him to the railing and tumbling him over is too much.”

That’s how I feel about this election. Some have suggested that not voting for Trump is tantamount to voting for Clinton. This strikes me as a bogus argument. By passively not voting, you simply wash your hands of it. For good or bad, it turns out the way it would have turned out, had you not intervened. It is by taking overt action — grabbing that ballot and wrestling it to the railing — that we become truly complicit.

This is not to say that silence equals consent. I have criticized both candidates for their sins. But I can’t, in good conscience, vote for either of them.