Why bother with a fringe candidate polling under 1%?

I first heard about Tulsi Gabbard when she was one of two dozen people who announced their candidacy for president in the Democratic Party about ten months ago. Very early in the process she said something that I thought was weird for a Democrat to say. It prompted me to put her in the category of nope, definitely not voting for her. I don’t remember what she said that caused that reaction. But nothing has prompted me to change that opinion.

And now Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa of Gaslit Nation have named an episode for her. I’ve written about a couple episodes of the Gaslit Nation podcast, in which the hosts have been very good at explaining the larger picture of the corruption around the nasty guy and the GOP by Russia, and how that explains the Ukraine story.

So, yeah, I’m interested in how Tulsi Gabbard fits into this. Some of my notes on the episode are below. Alas, the transcript doesn’t show timings, so I don’t know how long the audio is, though likely over an hour.

The episode begins with a tribute to Elijah Cummings, the recently deceased Representative from Baltimore, who was highly respected by members of both parties for his integrity and demand for accountability. This tribute included this bit from Kendzior:

Cummings is involved in the Trump-Russia investigation from the very start. He was the person who sent the letter to Mike Pence in 2016 documenting Michael Flynn's illicit activity, a letter which proves Pence knew of Flynn's crimes and did nothing about them. This is important now as people consider whether Pence can be impeached along with Trump.

Chalupa reminded us that the nasty guy must stay in power in 2020 to avoid facing justice. A win is critical to him. The Mueller Report established he’s a criminal and would be facing a court hearing if it wasn’t president (and those DOJ memos from just a couple decades ago that say a president can’t be indicted).

Then on to Gabbard. Kendzior and Chalupa have been avoiding discussing her because she supports dictators, such as Assad in Syria, Sisi in Egypt, and Modi in India. So no need to bother with a fringe candidate polling under 1%. But then Hillary Clinton said:

They're also going to do third-party again. And I'm not making any predictions, but I think they've got their eye on somebody who's currently in the Democratic primary, and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate. She's a favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far. And that's assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not, because she's also a Russian asset.

Yeah, Clinton is indeed saying Jill Stein – whose third-party candidacy drew enough votes in Michigan and a couple other state to be a bit larger than the vote difference between Clinton and the nasty guy – is a Russian asset.

Gabbard may not be a Russian asset. But she certainly has defended dictators, and that may be close enough. Is she alarmingly naive or is she willingly deceptive?

As for Clinton … In recent months people have been reviewing what she said through the 2016 campaign about the nasty guy, the Russia Mafia, Syria, Turkey, and all the rest. These people are concluding that Clinton was correct. She had foresight! (Otherwise known as doing your homework.) But then Clinton speaks of Gabbard as a current thing to watch out for and the media is back to dismissing her.

Gabbard probably isn’t on the Kremlin payroll. But there is documented evidence that the Kremlin is interested in her and that bot farms are starting to support her. Gabbard says she can’t control who supports her, but she isn’t disavowing Kremlin help or saying what she would do to counter it. Instead, Gabbard attacked Clinton and fundraised off it. She also hired a lobbyist linked to the Kremlin.

And the issue of our country is again under attack by the Kremlin and by a transnational crime syndicate is again being ignored.

Not that we need a reminder:

If a Democrat wins the White House in 2020, Putin and his regime and his court of oligarchs are in trouble, and they know that. So that is why they will be pulling out all the stops, just like they did in 2016, to make sure that their Russian asset stays in the White House.

Democratic candidates Beto O’Rourke and Pete Buttigieg also attacked Clinton, prompting this from Kendzior:

They're following the leads of weak-willed men who are so afraid of seeming alarmist that they let the fires rage right in front of their eyes, and don't do anything to try to put that out or even clarify why the fire is happening.

O’Rourke has now quit the race. But Mayor Pete is still in it. This little revelation means Mayor Pete stays in my nope, not going to vote for him category.

About Gabbard, Chalupa said:

Republicans love Tulsi Gabbard, because her rise threatens to divide the Democratic vote, just like Jill Stein did in 2016.

Gabbard was asked about Assad of Syria. She said since Syria is no direct threat to America we have no interest there. Kendzior and Chalupa then go into detail why Syria matters – It is now a client of Russia. It gives Russia a port on the Mediterranean Sea. It was Russia who bombed parts of Syria, increasing the flow of refugees to Europe and shifting several European governments further to the right. The hosts talk about what the Kurds created in northeast Syria (it sounds pretty cool) and what the nasty guy’s betrayal destroyed. So Gabbard saying Syria is no direct threat to American is “the audacity of stupidity.”

Chalupa said that Gabbard needs to explain her views on Assad. This prompts Chalupa to go into a long discussion of the horrors of the Assad regime, then into a description of Stalin’s famine and genocide of Ukraine. She went on to a discussion of a necessary “banks, not tanks” strategy of holding dictators responsible by stopping oligarchs from profiting off blood money.

Chalupa is tired of progressives, some who are presidential candidates, who don’t have a clue. We need to confront corruption. We need to have a strong social safety net so people who fall through the cracks don’t fall for a fake populist like the nasty guy. We need to have strong public schools so people can develop into critical independent thinkers who recognize what corporate media, Big Tech, and Russian bots are trying to feed them. We need to support anti-corruption reformers and independent journalists in their own countries because that also protects us here in America.

Kendzior points out the false dichotomy of dictatorship versus war. There are choices between no response at all and going in with guns blazing (see Iraq). And those in between choices can be done without violence. This must be done because there is more to violence than actual war. That violence is the brutality in the way a government treats its citizens. We tend to ignore that kind of violence. We can’t if we want to protect the public.