2016-02-18 – The trust issue in this year’s presidential campaign astounds me.

The Republican machine has been attacking Hillary Clinton nonstop for years. They are experts at undermining trust. They have attacked the science establishment for suggesting that humans have caused climate change. They have attacked Barack Obama for being a Kenyan Muslim socialist. They have attacked Hillary Clinton for Benghazi, for her offline email servers, for a raft of things.

No reality-based rebuttal has a chance against nagging doubt.

And that’s why they are so effective. They have no alternative theory. They know you won’t vote for the dark side. So they sow weakness. Yeah, the attacks on Hillary make no sense . . . but there’s so many of them, you know.

There must be something to it, right?

Right. There is something to it, but it’s not Hillary’s trustworthiness or lack thereof. If you agree with most of the things on Hillary’s platform, but you’re thinking about not voting for her if she becomes the nominee, then the right-wing doubt machine may just be working on you.

Not me!

Of course, not you. You’re a savvy person. You’re not like the benighted members of the working class who regularly vote against their interest (as we’re so fond of saying). You have good reasons to vote against your interest—

Doubt. Doubt that is manufactured by the Republican doubt machine. You’re not immune to it.

I like Bernie Sanders and intend to vote for him in the Illinois primary. Hillary is going to fight hard to keep Bernie from winning. That is to be expected. He’s fighting hard to keep her from winning. The Republican doubt machine wants to make that into something sinister. It’s not.

When it’s all over, and the nominee is known, I might say “yay” or I might say “boo hoo.” But I intend to support and vote for whichever of the two is the nominee. Don’t let the doubt machine keep you from doing the same. As Donald Trump says, “they’re liars.”