Everybody knows that Clinton attacked Tulsi Gabbard, and this is causing a scandal.
I thought I would have a quick look at what this was all about. What I found was another example of (dis)information, or mess of information, at work, and it is of some interest to look at how this mess operates.
Firstly, Clinton gave an interview on the 17th of October 2019 in which she said some members of the Democrats were likely Russian Assets and aiming at splintering the Party like Jill Stein had done…
Her argument was pro-Trump forces would not necessarily only try to get people to vote for Trump, but to actively not vote for the Democratic opponent. She said they would say:
You don’t like me? Don’t vote for the other guy because the other guy is going to do X, Y and Z or the other guy did such terrible things and I’m going to show you in these, you know, flashing videos that appear and then disappear and they’re on the dark web, and nobody can find them, but you’re going to see them and you’re going to see that person doing these horrible things.
This might be a bit exaggerated, but it does seem to encapsulate a lot of what was happening during the last election. Clinton continued that the Republicans,
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 is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third party candidate. She’s the 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, ’cause she’s also a Russian asset.
Many early media reports suggested that Clinton had said the Russians, rather than the Republicans, were “grooming” a candidate. In either case, no evidence seems to be presented by Clinton.
This was not wise set of statements, but Clinton probably lost the Presidency, and we got Donald Trump, because of people splitting the ‘left’, so it is not unreasonable she should have feelings on the matter, and warn that more intense versions of the same techniques are likely to be used again.
Apparently Tulsi Gabbard went on twitter claiming that Clinton and the Democrats were smearing her, and implying that the Democrats were corrupt. It is not clear what Gabbard’s source of the story was, possibly earlier mainstream media reports.
Thank you @HillaryClinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain,
it was always you, through your proxies and … powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose.
It’s now clear that this primary is between you and me. Don’t cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race directly.
We can see several standard approaches here.
- Trying to make the tweeter look as though they are being suppressed
- Trying to make the Tweeter look important – the others are frightened of the threat she poses, hence things they say are to be discounted.
- Responding to a smear with a bigger smear taken as common sense, or what everybody knows.
- Discrediting news which the tweeter finds objectionable by ‘dissing’ media in general; as if there were not more accurate and less accurate media organisations.
- Accusing the other person of inherently taking a position which they may not have taken, and cannot deny without appearing to take that position.
- There is also some soothing of any of the ‘Left’ who did not vote for Clinton and thus helped Trump to victory, by opening with the unsupported accusation that Clinton is the “Queen of warmongers” and “embodiment of corruption”. To reiterate, Clinton has been endlessly investigated by hostile inquiries, and they have never found an offence she can be charged with, or even thoroughly accused of. She is hardly the exemplar of evil – unless you take the absence of evidence and charges as showing how evil and cunning she is.
The Story was taken up by Fox News who broadcast Gabbard’s twitter statements and interviewed her. Gabbard clearly liked the segment as she tweeted it. It is probably not going too far to postulate that Fox saw a story which would cast the Democrats, and their favourite villain, Hillary Clinton, in a bad light and so were eager to participate in the issue, and stir it up for their own political aims.
On the 19th of October, CNN host Van Jones said that Clinton had come out against Gabbard, “a decorated war veteran” with “just a complete smear and no facts.” CNN seems to have heavily promoted the allegations and the conflict, although I have not checked thoroughly as to how heavily they promoted the line.
We can, therefore, note that at least two examples of the “corporate media” which Gabbard condemns, seem to have been fairly sympathetic to her position.
Someone asked a person, Nick Merril, who is associated with Clinton (I don’t know to what degree, although he likes portraying himself as close), if Clinton had meant Gabbard, and he replied something like:
Divisive language filled with vitriol and conspiracy theories? Can’t imagine a better proof point than this.
and
If the nesting doll fits
There is no evidence from his statements that he had any inside knowledge, but that he thought Gabbard’s response to Clinton made the general point.
Most mainstream news companies went with Gabbard’s version of the story as this was the only version being broadcast, until some of them checked the interview and found that Clinton had not named Gabbard. They then attempted to clear things up.
Other news companies then attacked the retractions. One I saw, argued that Clinton did attack Gabbard and was lying, and played the interview, concluding, to the effect that ‘there you are no question of it’. Unfortunately, in the clip they showed, Clinton did not mention Gabbard at all, despite their explicit claims to the contrary.
If that was the best they could do, then it is clear that Clinton did not attack Gabbard by name, and apparently not by implication either (unless you consider the use of ‘her’ as an implication).
A day or so later (20th October or thereabouts), the President saw this as an opportunity to use the story to defend Gabbard and himself, saying:
Hillary Clinton, I don’t know if you’ve heard of her, she’s the one accusing everybody of being a Russian agent. Anybody that is opposed to her is a Russian agent. That’s a scam that was pretty much put down.
I don’t know Tulsi, but she’s not a Russian agent, I don’t know Jill Stein. I know she likes environment. I don’t think she likes Russians. If she does like them, I know she’s not an asset.
These people are sick. There’s something wrong with them,
[Different media sources give different orders, and slightly different phrasings for Trump’s statements, probably because he made them several times, (probably at a Press Conference, and in a hyper-friendly interview on Fox) as he saw it as an opportunity to dismiss the Mueller inquiry’s findings, and the general evidence he both received Russian support and his campaign attempted to attract Russian support]
This acts to keep the story going, and to keep it phrased in a certain way.
However, what can we conclude about Gabbard’s quick response to Clinton?
- a) At best, Gabbard is thin-skinned and likely to completely break up under pressure from the Republican media. If she can’t handle this she has no chance of survival in real heat.
- b) She may have a guilty conscience and recognised herself in the comments.
- c) She tried to smear Clinton and the Democrats, in order to persuade her followers not to support whoever is chosen to run for President if it wasn’t her (and her nomination is probably unlikely), and therefore keep Trump in power.
According to some reports, rather than just backing down and getting on with her campaign Gabbard is pressing Clinton to retract “her accusations”, through her lawyers. According to these stories (which may not be true of course), she demands that Clinton say:
“On October 17, 2019, I made certain statements about Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. Among other things, I accused her of being a Russian asset and that Russia was grooming her to be a third-party candidate.
“I was wrong. I never should have made these remarks, and I apologize. I did not have any basis for making the statements. I acknowledge my grave mistake and error in judgment in this matter.” [there is more]
Clinton cannot retract what she did not do, but Gabbard appears to want to create as much chaos as possible, as you would expect if she was trying to splinter the Democratic Party and keep Trump in power. She may not be trying, but that is what she appears to be doing.
At the best, it means that the information so strongly fits with her filters (“Clinton is corrupt,” “The Democratic Party authorities are against me,” “people who support me agree Clinton named me”), that Gabbard cannot be bothered to check what she already knows, or that she does not want to loose face, media attention, or campaign momentum, by admitting the story is distorted.
We already have that problem, in a President who seems to primarily believe what Fox News tells him is the case, and who throws aside counter information, that does not fit with his bias and filters.
We can also see the story being used for political purposes, and in attempts to settle scores, and hostilities. This distracts from attempts to find out what is correct or even what is plausible. Some reports suggest that Gabbard’s fund raising was boosted by the ‘scandal’, which would provide another reason to keep going with the story, but I’m not accepting that as correct at the moment.
This now, seems to be becoming the normal response to news. Accept what fits with your existing bias, or political strategy, and don’t check to make sure its correct. If you are wrong, then let the news cycle move on, or create a new disturbance. Being wrong is irrelevant, and people will eventually forget you were wrong.
For me, this series of events as well as describing motivators of the information mess, opens the question of whether Gabbard is a suitable candidate for President? Let us compare her with someone who is not a presidential Candidate. AOC.
AOC is intelligent and competent, she handles pressure well, she deals with conflict wittily, she makes news, she does things, she works well with others, and she improves the standing of her Party.
Gabbard may have good policies, but clearly does not handle pressure or conflict well, and she does not seem to do much to improve the Party’s standing. I don’t know anything about how she works with other people, and so far I have seen no evidence that Gabbard has done anything, above the routine, with her four terms in Congress. However, she does appear to be trying hard to split the Party, and keep Trump in office. If she is not trying to do this, then it is hard to praise her intelligence.
Incidentally, it was reported in February that:
An NBC News analysis of the main English-language news sites employed by Russia in its 2016 election meddling shows Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who is set to make her formal announcement Saturday, has become a favorite of the sites Moscow used when it interfered in 2016.
So the Russians may like her. She has supported their actions and propaganda in Syria [1],[2],[3] which makes that support plausible. [I’m not quite clear why realistic suspicion of US foreign policy, translates so often into the ideas that everyone the US supports must be bad and that Putin is the Good Guy. But it does]. The conspiratorial right and Fox has also apparently supported her, although I doubt this would translate into support for her in an election against Trump. If so, then this adds to the likelihood of the news being stirred and distorted, for the Right’s benefit.
Let us be clear, that despite the popularity of the “both sides are equally bad,” meme, there is no doubt that Trump is far worse than Clinton would have been, and if you are remotely Green, then that should be obvious. Trump will gladly destroy and poison people to boost corporate power. He joyfully supports destruction of the environment. Throughout the world, we have all had our probabilities of uncomfortable eco-death increased by the election of Trump. It is not smart to fall into the same trap again.
This means, of course that if Gabbard does win the primaries, then it is important to support her against Trump, and not get caught up in counter wars against her of the kind the Republicans will try to start up.
It is that vital to defeat Trump.
Tags: Disinformation, politics
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