On the other hand, is it really fair to condemn Americans for holding opinions that Russians think are great to exploit?
When the positions are stupid, it doesn’t really matter what the Russians think.
But contrast the criticism of Gabbard to the situation in 2016: Obama wanted to go public that Russia was supporting Trump’s campaign, but he held his tongue because Moscow Mitch threatened to make the defense of our country against foreign influence a weapon to attack Obama.
Should Obama have revealed the pro-Trump Russian influence campaign? In hindsight, absolutely. By the same measure, we shouldn’t cover up Russian meddling in our elections in 2020, no matter who they are supporting.
Explain why she is endorsed by every racist in the country.
Racists are very often antiwar.
Yeah, everybody knows that!
Support for Gabbard among racists and right wingers is so high that we should discourage her from running as a left wing “spoiler”. Incoherent.
So which part do you disagree with?
No. Only students of history.
From my point of view, it matters not that she is supported by racists and right wingers. It matters even less so that she runs as independent.
Obviously, but some of us think racism is really, really bad, and racists should generally be opposed rather than emulated. For those of us with these kinds of beliefs, Duke’s endorsement of Tulsi Gabbard makes us a lot less likely to support her.
I can’t support Gabbard who I think is still a closet homophobe based on interviews, despite partially walking back her earlier positions. However I’m not sure that kind of hyperbole is helpful. At the end of that day, most bog-standard American racists are not going to vote for a part-Samoan woman if by some miracle she made it into the election. That she has the support of some loud, mostly internet-based trolls is interesting, but probably not indicative of an actual constituency.
You’re right … there goes Clinton’s election chances!
HRC is a private citizen now, free to pontificate freely. She is not the establishment and has no power and fairly little influence. While I think she would have been an excellent president (better than anyone running this cycle in my mind) she will be known in history as the one lost to Trump, not a great way to known in however history gets recorded in the future.
Her point though was aimed less at Gabbard per se than the Russians and how they continue to attempt to subvert and interfere with our system. They clearly are and there is fairly good evidence that they are indeed supporting Gabbard as part of that subversion campaign, perhaps with hopes of manipulating her into an independent run.
Many, here and in the media, are confusedly thinking that Clinton stated that Gabbard is an “agent”, and not understanding what an “asset” is.
Marina Butina was a Russian agent. Her job as an agent was to develop assets. Those in the NRA who she befriended (not only by sleeping with, but also by other means) were used to get her access to GOP lawmakers in high positions and to have that marginal impact on narratives. The NRA officials who did that, and who visited Russia in 2015, were not Russian agents like she was. They were assets.
Russia’s program of trying to develop assets in the United States, their program of attempting as much as possible to fuck up our democracy, to undermine confidence in it and in all of our country’s institutions, is established fact at this point. A belief that they are done doing it would be very naive.
The evidence that they are taking advantage of the big debate stage and supporting a fringe candidate who will says the messages they want said, trying to keep her with as big a megaphone as possible for as long as possible seems firm.
Why is a person who lost a presidential election, she thinks in part due to Russian interference, calling attention to what she sees as obvious ongoing Russian attempts to interfere with our process in this cycle? Oh I dunno …
Is HRC a Great Communicator? No. The word “asset” is too easily misunderstood and her actual message lost. If she was better at it she would be president now, Russian interference or not. But the actual message? On point.
The phrase “antiwar” needs a mountain-sized grain of salt here:
As for Gabbard’s own “antiwar” credentials on Syria, she isn’t. She advocated the US pulling out of Syria so that Assad and Russia could continue their one-sided slaughter of the Syrian population.
Gabbard parroted the Russian propaganda lines that Assad didn’t use chemical weapons, and the “white hat” aid workers were actually terrorists.
Also the fact that Gabbard took money from the top 5 defense contractors and did not return it.
Gabbard served as a military police officer in the Iraq war. She’s still in the NG and will cheerfully remind folks of her service record when it suits her.
Gabbard is not anti-war.
All of this BS is coming from the neocon think tanks and being parroted by kept media that would make Operation Mockingbird veterans blush.
The Democrats are now the party of Bill Kristol, David Frum, David Brooks, and Max Boot.
Those guys really, really suck, and they aren’t Democrats, but they’re still far, far better than white supremacists like David Duke.
David Frum? Wow.
Uh… all of this is public record, coming from Gabbard’s own mouth.
The crew of “I hope the Democrats don’t run so liberal that I have to vote for Trump”?
This is so unconnected from reality that it’s really fascinating.
Firstly, she isn’t endorsed by “every racist in the country”. She’s been endorsed by a couple of high profile racists, both of whom she’s thoroughly and repeatedly denounced.
Secondly, who cares what they think? Seriously, why is it that David Duke’s opinion, which we immediately discard in every other context, suddenly becomes so terribly valuable during the primaries? And why even assume that this geriatric professional troll was even being serious? I don’t know about anyone else, but when I see a white supremacist endorsing a non-Christian woman of colour my first thought is that he’s fucking with us.
But let’s assume he isn’t. There are only a couple of things I can think he might like about Gabbard. The first is that she’s not afraid to call Islamic terrorism Islamic terrorism (as opposed to using cringey double-speak like ‘Radical jihadism’). The second is that her foreign policy is (at least superficially) quite non-interventionist. That’s all I can think of, and they’re also things most Americans support.
Of course, it could just be that Gabbard’s quite attractive and David Duke’s just a horny old man. Who knows? And who cares?
These are questions I never have to think about because I support candidates that David Duke hates.
Please see note in post #300:
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