One reason this happens, that we can perhaps do something about, is slandering politicians we don’t like as being super-villainous. All the claims of treason and murder thrown around (and as a rule never sticking) move the yardstick away from “morally impressive.” I think a failing of the Sanders movement — which Sanders has neither participated in nor managed to stop — has been jumping on board with the slanders against Hillary Clinton as villainous. She’s just a corporate lawyer, as far as anyone can prove, who doesn’t respect FOIA and likes taking corporate money and pretending she’s above it. If you buy chocolate that you’ve heard is made with child slave labor, you’re doing worse than that, which means me sometimes too, at least on the small scale. She’s not a villain, and the more we make her out to be a villain (something that everyone running for office now encounters), the less people notice that she’s not “morally impressive.” I would like us, very much please, to go with someone who seems to have a better sense of integrity than an average corporate lawyer, since we seem to have the option this time. Every time we exaggerate, we make that basic standard harder to hold on to.