Wikileaks, information, and zealously holding on to one's idols

The occasion for this post is a nice article on Wikileaks. But all of this points to broader issues:

A lot of people vote for Party X out of tradition and habit, devoting little thought to the process. And that's fine: since each vote matters *so* little, why bother? But what about the people who spend considerable energy trying to justify avid support for horrible candidates?

The mental gymnastics required to support Trump are well-documented and obvious. But in the case of Clinton, it's particularly interesting, because these are supposed to be the smart, tolerant folks. Is the related pathos greatest because of their...

a.) prudish self-righteousness

b.) ironic fundamentalism

c.) utter rejection of liberal values while still claiming (believing?) to be "liberal"

Anyway, it's obvious that if we had a lot more liberals and conservatives, we'd have a much better political arena.

UPDATE: This article (salty but spot-on) from Ray Rieck (on the relevant FB thread)...and my response:

Salty, indeed, but I think it aptly describes a huge (or yuge) part of what's going on for Trump: radically different worldviews; condescension of the elites (most of whom are self-styled liberals); largely-reasonable suspicion of the elites by the unwashed / deplorables; and so on.

What explains Clinton voters, though?

a.) They were only given two (lousy) choices in the primaries: unicorn-believing, idealist Sanders vs. Clinton-- and Clinton (barely) wins that...ironically, by winning a rigged primary system. And what else are they going to do?

b.) The probable culmination of identity politics: What they say, believe, do, etc.-- doesn't matter. Let's get a member of group X into position Y.

c.) Their supposed policy positions and supposed approach to others have always been a sham-- and this moment gives us occasion to see both on full display. .