‘Useful Idiot for Russia’: DNC Decides to Go Off on Jill Stein
thebulwark.com
“Jill Stein is a useful idiot for Russia. After parroting Kremlin talking points and being propped up by bad actors in 2016 she’s at it again,” DNC spokesman Matt Corridoni said in a statement to The Bulwark. “Jill Stein won’t become president, but her spoiler candidacy—that both the GOP and Putin have previously shown interest in—can help decide who wins. A vote for Stein is a vote for Trump.”
i'm glad the "you're pro-genocide if you vote anything but 3rd party" morons finally shut the fuck up around here
edit: LOL
have you had ANYONE turn around and say " you know what, you're right!" on lemmy? or ANYWHERE?
gtfo russian cumfarts
Probably doesn't help that Stein refuses to call Putin a war criminal.
https://www.newsweek.com/jill-stein-vladimir-putin-war-criminal-1954965
"Hasan later asked Stein why she had labeled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a war criminal, but not Putin.
"Well, as John F. Kennedy said, we must not negotiate out of fear and we must not fear to negotiate," she replied. "So, if you want to be an effective world leader, you don't start by name-calling and hurling epithets."
"So, how will President Stein negotiate with Israel then if you've called Netanyahu a war criminal?" Hasan asked in response.
"Well, because he very clearly is a war criminal," Stein said, prompting Hasan to ask: "So Putin clearly isn't a war criminal?"
"Well, we don't have a decision—put it this way—by the International Criminal Court," Stein said.
The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Putin, alleging that he is responsible for war crimes. No such warrant has been issued for Netanyahu, whose war on Gaza has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians. However, the chief prosecutor of the ICC has applied for an arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister.
"There's an arrest warrant for Putin and there isn't an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, so why is Putin not a war criminal, but Netanyahu is?" Hasan asked.
"Yeah. Well, let me say this. We are sponsoring that war. We are sponsoring Netanyahu," Stein responded. "He is our dog in this fight. That is why we have a responsibility to pull him back.""
Fwiw after that whole thing made news she released a press statement that did call him a war criminal
EDIT: citation - https://www.jillstein2024.com/war_criminals_and_diplomacy
"Hey, Vladimir? I need to actually call you a war criminal now, yeah, I almost got found out. Thanks! I knew you'd understand!"
LOL! That makes it sound like she's a Russian plant or Russian asset rather than a useful idiot - the latter wouldn't need to report back like that.
And anyone paying attention realizes she only put out the statement after she got called on it and had time to think about what it meant that she was actively avoiding doing so. This is 100% optics and nothing more.
Her statement is about as believable as a kid with crumbs on their face saying they didn't eat all the cookies....
Unfortunately, third party candidates are made exactly for people not paying attention
Way too little, way too late. Medhi cut her up so surgically I don't even know if she's gonna have the stones to resurface four years from now. Hopefully being a Russian asset pays well, Shill is done
Aha, you fool! You think she feels shame?
LMAO no
Makes sense, but citation requested.
That being said, she's so ill informed that she didn't know how many House Reps there are. Of course she wouldn't have known about the ICC arrest warrant for Putin until a reporter told her so she could look it up.
Citation as requested: https://www.jillstein2024.com/war_criminals_and_diplomacy
If anything, if he's "our dog" as she says, doesn't that mean he's just a tool rather than a war criminal?
Why is this interesting? Here's another point of view, one that's a bit more consistent. Israel, while not being a member of NATO, has a special relationship with it and is basically a major defacto ally.
If you are pro-(Putin's) Russia and believe NATO's actions are war crimes, then it's no leap at all to consider Israel in the same group. In fact, hurting Israel (the country) then benefits Russia as it weakens NATO (by weakening a close ally of theirs).
Ahahaha oh no the "office workers" are still all over here, their content usually just gets downvoted into being permanently hidden and they've stopped picking fights outside of their own posts.
Don't forget there was also a bunch of government-backed troll farms shut down recently
At first I read this as something that existed at the post level, too. Man, I sometimes wish something like that existed - posts below a certain rating could just be hidden (like Slashdot, for instance).
Well, on lemmy you can probably brigade quite easily so that would give the propagandists a weapon too.
It does kinda, if you browse using the Hot sorting stuff with 0 or less net score typically won't show up unless you go quite a few pages back.
Those MAGAs cosplaying as lefties will have an even harder time now that the Uncommitted group have said they cannot support Harris but Donald will be worse. The same as we have all be saying.
Not just Trump will be worse as some sort of abstract moral statement. Their statement is that Uncommitted voters should actively vote against Donald Trump no matter how inadequate Harris's statements and commitments have been.
Of course it's exactly who I expected to show up and say that lmao. They're so fucking predictable. It's hilarious.
They haven't, they just get downvoted pretty quickly.
lol, where's dufusbaan?
hilarious that i know exactly who you're talking about
Jill is here to collect some donations then disappear for 4 years. Again.
As someone in a state where my presidential vote is very much decided... I voted Gary Johnson in 2016. I know there are a lot of very real critiques of the libertarian party and/or platform, but it's really sad the green party puts it to shame... it's not a high bar.
My point being... wtf is she still doing doing this stuff? Libertarians push local candidates all the damn time, and make a push for the presidential seat when they can, but soundly rejected Trump, and hell, even in 2016 you had the VP libertarian cantidate saying "vote Hillary". Like I am upset as anyone else, but if you're still in the green party you're just kidding yourself... and thats from a freaking libertarian that hates his party a good 50% of the time.
I absolutely despise libertarians. But I approve this message.
Lol. I get it. I've said it before and I'll say it a million more times I'm sure: it's got a lot of problems, but I like the framework the NAP provides. It's explicit and provides a place to work from.
They're not all crazy "public roads are theft" folks. And again, remember the party soundly rejected trump. IME a lot of libertarians are generally supportive of social programs, so long as they're egalitarian.
But what really rustles jimmies is the cut and dry stuff. I will never be able to get over democrats being on the wrong side of gay marriage, even in the name of pragmatism. I'll support them out of pragmatism, but I'm bitter about it.
But to the point of this thread: very little of that matters if there's not a next election. I'll take the party that fumbled gay marriage in the late 2000s VS. The one that wants to kill my friends 1000/10 times.
And again to the point of this thread: it's telling, and gives me faith in my party, there is no "Garry Johnson" this year.
There’s photos of Shill Stein dining with Putin. How much more evidence do you need?
She wasn't even the worst at the table, that "honor" goes to convicted felon Mike Flynn:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Flynn
More on Flynn and his connecting Trump to Russia here:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/03/connections-trump-putin-russia-ties-chart-flynn-page-manafort-sessions-214868/
p.s. Trump's "National Security Advisor".
Oh oh but if I mention it to certain folk, that's "old news" and "why do you only ever bring that image up" and "lol libs sure are grasping at straws"
Fascism and political interference does not have an expiration date.
Worth bringing the image up because it's from 2015... 6 months after she announced she was running.
Lest anyone try to claim Stein isn’t running purely as a spoiler candidate.
Still can’t believe Flynn was the fucking head of the DIA
No, you see they just happened to put her at the same table as Putin and the other scumbags. She had no say in it! And she couldn't do anything about it! She's the victim here, don't ya know!
...This is the common response you see from the Stein cultists when this photo is brought up. And it's pure horseshit. If she had anywhere near the principles and ethics she claims to have she would have got up and left from that table immediately. But she didn't. Because she's a hypocritical con-artist, a charlatan.
Stein plays the morally-upright crusader, waltzing around casting sanctimonious judgements on others. But at the end of the day she's a far right stooge who is only interested in stroking her own ego and discretely ingratiating herself to tyrants. She can say what she want and has no accountability held against her.
She had done so much damage to the Green movement over the past decade+. She only pops up at election time to try to make life easier for far right movements whose policies are often the antithesis of what she pretend to support.
The Democrats should be doing more on environmental issues and holding Israel accountable for what's going on in Palestine. But at least they aren't hiding behind their own self-righteousness to anywhere near the degree that Stein is.
Yes, this is true.
This is also true. But she has no shot at winning and is literally only capable of helping the orange bad. We need rank-choice voting. Until we get that, she should shut up and drop out. Especially with the threat of the orange bad.
Yup! This exactly.
Narrator: the DNC is correct.
Forget debates. I would pay good money to see an episode of Jeopardy with Harris, Stein, and Trump.
The categories could be content from a high school civics class.
"This person won the popular vote for President in 2016."
Prepare for rant about the show being BIASED AGAINST ME and spreading FAKE NEWS by not accepting alternative FACTS.
How is this the first time me hearing this wonderful idea?
"I'll take Jap Anus Relations for $200 Alex"
I'd much rather see them in a game show than a debate. Debates are pretty much boring game shows these days anyways.
@LorneMichaels We need this stat!
The people who vote for her seem like the useful idiots to me, she herself more seems like a traitor to the old values of her country and the purported causes of her party. She loves foreign autocrat dictatorships and there's nothing green about helping republicans win elections.
Yeah useful idiots are volunteers, she's a paid collaborator.
Jill has ruined a lot of credibility.
Universalmonk bouta flip a table.
I doubt anyone dumb enough to vote for Stein are Harris voters anyway. So now than likely a vote for Stein will be one taken for Trump. So Trump and Putin can waste all the money they want on her campaign.
They're probably trying to scoop up the Republican voters that are disillusioned with Trump and prevent them from going to Harris. It's actually a decent strategy in that light.
You know, positioning the DNC "against" her might draw some of the people who won't vote for Harris but really don't want to vote for Trump away from voting GOP....
You don't have to be "smart" to vote for a good candidate.
Stein is the nominally "more liberal than the Democrats are willing to be" candidate. So most likely if they were forced to vote and could only vote for Trump or Harris, then I'd wager they'd mostly go Harris.
A relative weakness is that on the left there are currently more people ready to discard strategic thinking and stand on what they consider their absolute principles. The right is currently a bit more unified, as they are more willing to yield on their differences to vote closest to their overall goal with a decent chance to win.
Or the left is fairly unified in practice but Internet manipulations present the illusion otherwise, I have no idea
Or you could just reserve your opinion for who you are going to vote for, and respect the fact everyone is free to come to their own conclusion.
I'm voting for Harris, but it wouldnt offend me If someone said they were voting third party. The same as I wouldnt expect it to offend them I'm voting for Harris.
Y'all need to get off this good and evil Netflix drama.
What they ultimately do with their vote is their business, but I'm just responding to the premise that would-be Stein voters would not vote for Harris anyway, because they are "too dumb" to vote for Harris, which is incorrect.
As to discussing the strategic situation, I think that is important to reiterate the consequence of their vote. Stein will not win, it's very obvious, so a vote thrown that way is merely a message to try to break the self fulfilling prophecy of third parties being hopeless. If you truly feel either candidate is roughly equal, this is a fine and strategic move. I could understand that perspective in most presidential races I have seen. Given the happenings associated with Trump's first term, I personally can not understand that perspective, but ultimately it is their business.
To be quiet on this would be to let what seems to be forces looking to weaken the Harris prospect prevail in swaying people to vote for Stein, despite those forces not actually wanting Stein, but just wanting a spoiler candidate to take some votes the way they want.
First of all, blown way out of proportion. People voting for the green party are a very small number. What the democrat party doesnt want is any valid criticism of their party. That is detrimental because it could cause people to pull away from the democrats.
So instead of just acknowledging any good points the green party has, or at least arguing them in good faith, they throw mud on the party calling them a Russian controlled political party, which is hypocritical at best when AIPAC runs the democratic party.
Personally, I think the democrats would be better off acting in good faith rather than avoiding the topic and slandering the speakers.
If out of proportion in scale, back in 2000, Nader voters going for Gore would have decided the nation for everyone. Ultimately the choices of a few hundred people overcame over half a million votes going the other way. The very small number of Stein voters in a certain place can decide the output. I don't fault them for 2000, even if I disagree with them, because I don't think folks could have reasonably foreseen the warmongering that was to come.
If out of proportion in severity, between November 2020 and January 2021, you had several attempts to undermine the election, and that was with very little planning/prep work. You had trying to get the states to "find enough votes", you had fake electors, trying to get the VP to unilaterally refuse the election, inciting a crowd to storm the proceedings. In the aftermath you have certain people planning their whole political careers on promising to guarantee the elections for GOP, speculation that Vance was picked carefully as someone willing to do what Pence wouldn't, and a whole carefully constructed plan to start getting things ready for 2028 election the moment 2025 starts, if they can. You have a supreme court that ruled that a president may be considered immune for crimes, unless of course the supreme court decides it's not an "official act", reserving the ability to selectively enforce law on the president themselves.
With respect to Russian influence, this is specifically a Stein situation and plenty of evidence to support that Stein is being supported by and manipulated by Russia. It makes sense too, as Trump has shown himself to be awfully susceptible to Putin's manipulation, so taking advantage of a naive Stein to foil the votes of naive voters in favor of Trump is a plain strategic path for them.
Yes, we can talk about her platform, particularly about her wish to dissolve NATO and stop support of Ukraine, but other parts of her platform are difficult to explain the nuance of the problems. Like "dump money on third world nations", which sounds the decent thing to do, but historically trashes any semblance of local economy and frequently reinforces warlords instead of the people.
If your logic is that the green party is big enough to cover the difference between candidates votes, then I have bad news for you because so is my neighborhood, and yours, and the group of people at your local church, and the next one over, and so on. Thats the reason why I say its impact is overblown. If the democrats lose by a hundred thousand votes, its not the green parties fault even if they get a million votes.
The democrats need to appeal to voters, not throw shit. Apparently the democrat base right now likes when the campaign dives into the mud though, saying things like "its refreshing to hear" despite that being the exact same reason people were drawn to trump.
Any of the Stein shills want to explain to everyone why Trump (among many other awful people/companies/etc) attorney Jay Sekulow was representing The Green Party in their case against the State of Nevada?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2024/09/18/how-republicans-and-democrats-are-boosting-third-party-spoiler-candidates-as-trump-lawyer-represents-jill-stein/
Anyone?
Trump and his team believe the same thing Democrats do: so-called third parties "steal" votes from the dominant parties. just because they believe it doesn't make it true
Oh ok... So everyone who literally does this for a living and has done it for decades believes this. All evidence from previous elections indicates this. Evidence we have about this current candidate in this sham "party" clearly supports this...
You're really not helping yourself here.
that's not true
They’re not wrong, but they could stand to recognize that some of their own policy shortcomings opened the door to her challenge.
That's always going to be the case with a first past the post election system. There can only be 2 parties with a chance to win at any one time and both are forced to be big tents. Because they have no chance at winning third parties get more choice on the issues they focus on and more freedom in how they talk about those issues.
We need election reform. We need a voting system that gives more power to minority voices and we need an election system that makes Congress better reflect the actual vote. I like STAR voting and want to move the house to proportional representation. We would most likely still have 2 big tent more or less center parties that will trade the plurality but the big tents would have to work with the minority party representatives to get enough votes to pass legislation. It's possible that more minority party visibility and them being taken more seriously would lead to a more ideologically diverse Senate and it would almost certainly boost minority party power in state and local elections.
The whole point is that there is no challenge. It is sabotage funded by Republicans and Putin.
What challenges has she done when not running for POTUS?
Well, that's a good point, but Stein and the Green party are going about it the wrong way. Even Stein's predecessor, Ralph Nader, has stated that they need to spend more time at the grassroots and building up local support, including getting folks elected to local school boards, state legislatures, and the like.
Jill Stein wouldn't say that Putin is a war criminal. You should really listen to how she dances stupid the interview with Medhi Hassan.
https://boingboing.net/2024/09/16/kremlins-favorite-candidate-jill-stein-refuses-to-call-putin-a-war-criminal-during-interview.html
The fallout/optics from that blatant fear to speak clearly about Putin was bad enough it seems that she's now made a follow-up statement to lightly say the phrase, with qualification (after checking with daddy) and associating it only with Syria and refusing to mention Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
in that interview she immediately says "yes". framing it as though she isn't saying it is just lying.
"Say it" means a specific thing. She's given multiple opportunities to do so directly in that interview and she's terrified of a sound bite of her acknowledging it directly. She readily says it (appropriately) about Netanyahu, she will not say or about Putin. You're either an apologist yourself or you're undereducated on the subject matter - either way, do better.
making a woman perform like that is one of the most misogynist things I think anybody's ever proposed me.
We're not discussing a woman, we're discussing a person and one that wants to be president. It's far past time you stop reducing the candidate to sex and engage on the level they are asking to be engaged with. Words matter. Unequivocal statements that can't be re-justified after the fact, matter.
A presidential election is a 24/7 performance as rehearsal for a 24/7 performance job. Your words literally immediately become historical record in this position.
You don't seem like a serious person.
she was unequivocal
She is their stooge.
Jill Stein needs to go, condemning Putin should be the easiest thing in the world to do for any non-Russian.
Or anyone not in Putin's pocket. Yes.
she has done that
The only place I ever see/read anything at all about Jill Stein is on Lemmy.
Then you need to get out more because she's been on a whole mess of main stream media.
That's like saying someone needs to go outside because they haven't dunked their head in radioactive waste.
Russia is bad and all, but she's much more directly a useful idiot for Republicans who are not only more directly focused on directly harming the people Stein's campaign is targeting, but have a significantly greater ability to actually accomplish it. No one needs to trust the US establishment that Russia is bad, they know Republicans and how they're bad.
Also, DNC, why are you making this news on The Bulwark? Way to undercut your message.
Well that's the whole point, Putin's goal is to destabilize the West, that's why he backed Trump and Stein in 2016 and 2020, it's why he backed Brexit in 2016.
Now, for the DNC and Bulwark, there's a more strongly worded article on democrats.org which is straight from the DNC, unfortunately the DNC doesn't meet our credibility guidelines for posts. LOL.
https://democrats.org/news/icymi-jill-stein-to-campaign-today-with-alleged-russian-assets/
"Engaging with foreign assets is a pattern for Stein. Previously, the Senate Intelligence Committee investigated links between Stein’s 2016 campaign and Russia’s efforts to interfere in the election, while an indictment brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller found that the Kremlin’s Internet Research Agency had used social media to promote her candidacy. In 2015, Stein attended a gala in support of Russian propaganda television network, RT, where she sat at the head table alongside Vladimir Putin and Michael Flynn. Stein has repeatedly parroted Kremlin views and posted a campaign video from Moscow’s Red Square with language “ripped from Putin’s talking points.”
Despite her ties to the Kremlin and Putin, the GOP has still embraced Jill Stein as a spoiler candidate. Donald Trump praised Jill Stein, saying he likes her “very much.” Additionally, the GOP has been helping Stein with ballot access in an attempt to prop up her spoiler candidacy. "
Putin isn't all that powerful a force in our society. He has limited influence and capability to disrupt operations. The GOP on the other hand has the ability and intention to drastically curtail our freedoms while sacrificing our well-being so rich people can get marginally richer. They're the ones who can spend billions of dollars running sham efforts to get Stein on the ballot, they're the ones who can give money to her campaign, and they're the ones who have the cultural knowledge to run truly dangerous influence operations.
I'm much more worried and angered by a "left" voice allying with the GOP than I am with some idea of foreign influence. The foreigners aren't the problem. There are plenty of fascists right here at home and no remote ideological excuse for working with them in any fashion regardless of how angry you are with the DNC.
You're understating the Russian influence:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/russias-2024-election-interference-already-begun-rcna134204
https://apnews.com/article/russian-interference-presidential-election-influencers-trump-999435273dd39edf7468c6aa34fad5dd
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/sep/04/russia-accused-of-trying-to-influence-us-voters-through-online-campaign
Do you really think buying Facebook ads and running upvote farms is a major contributor to the temperature of the country? I'm sorry but I'm just not convinced. I think that the corporations and billionaires that own all of our media outlets are responsible for 99% of disinformation and that Putin's efforts are a fart in the wind in comparison.
Absolutely. Russia did the same thing in the UK leading up to the Brexit vote because they recognized the value in a weaker European Union.
Top UK Google searches following the vote:
"What is Brexit?"
"What is the EU?"
https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/06/24/480949383/britains-google-searches-for-what-is-the-eu-spike-after-brexit-vote
They didn't even know what they were voting on but the propaganda stream got them to vote yes.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1669273/russian-meddling-brexit-referendum-funding-spt
Bulwark has been on a good article blitz recently.
They're fine, but they were explicitly founded as Never Trump conservatives, which is not the outfit you want to go to when trying to discredit challenges that are nominally based on the Democrats being too conservative.
Good to know, thanks. That might explain some of the articles popping up lately.
then stop bitching and unfuck your electoral system
Oh, it can be done, but that means amending the Constitution.
To do that you need 290 votes in the House, the people who needed 15 tries to get a simple 218 vote majority to pick their own leader.
Then you need 67 votes in the Senate, a body that's incapactitated by needing 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.
Then you need ratification from 38 states, when 25 went to Biden in 2020 and 25 went to Trump.
There may be a way around it, but that doesn't kick in until enough states with 270 Electoral College votes agree to it, and that hasn't happened yet either:
https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/written-explanation
Man, it's incredibly hard to change anything.
Yup! And intentionally so!
Thomas Jefferson's preference was to throw out the whole thing and re-do it every 20 years. Can you imagine?
https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/jefferson-memorial-education-each-new-generation.htm
"It has then, like them, a right to choose for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of its own happiness; consequently, to accommodate to the circumstances in which it finds itself, that received from its predecessors; and it is for the peace and good of mankind, that a solemn opportunity of doing this every nineteen or twenty years, should be provided by the constitution; so that it may be handed on, with periodical repairs, from generation to generation, to the end of time, if anything human can so long endure."
Can you imagine? The Constitution was ratified in 1788, took effect in 1789.
So, by Jefferson's standard, we should be on our 11th Constitution by now? Ratified in 2008? Next one due in 2028.
All these articles attacking Stein my make people not vote for her, but they aren't going to convince anyone to vote for Harris.
If you don't want Trump, you only have one choice.
They arent going to convince anyone to vote for Trump either, so what's your point, comrade?
Trump doesn't care about Ukraine at all. What do you think of that?
I agree. This feels the similar to gerrymandering or restricting access to vote for minorities. They should be able to win without having to walk through a gutter.
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P.S. can I just say how bad does it have to be that a Right-Center news source agrees and promotes the DNC?
That’s the whole point of the bulwark. It’s the official organ of never-trump republicans.