Tulsi Gabbard reignites Hillary Clinton feud over 'Russian asset' remark
2020 Democrat Rep. Tulsi Gabbard blasts Hillary Clinton and the media establishment for pushing the 'Russian asset' narrative. Talk radio host Dana Loesch reacts.
New York Magazine slammed Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, and several liberal journalists this week, classifying them as the "anti-anti-Trump" of the left.
Gabbard has ruffled feathers within the Democratic Party in recent weeks by carrying on a fiery feud with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who suggested that the Hawaii congresswoman was being groomed by the Russians, to voting "present" on last week's articles of impeachment against President Trump.
But New York writer Jonathan Chait criticized groups -- including "die-hard Bernie activists" and former Green Party candidate Jill Stein -- that he suggested spoiled the 2016 election for Clinton. He even expressed his concerns that Gabbard will, in fact, run as a third-party candidate in 2020 despite her repeated denials.
"Anti-anti-Trumpism has maintained a small but durable intellectual infrastructure," Chait explained about the movement. "The sentiments that first registered as dissent from the Russia investigation transferred to impeachment, and a chorus of left-wing voices is attacking the effort to remove Trump from office as at best a misguided diversion and at worst a deep-state coup."
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Media personalities called out by Chait include The Hill TV host Krystal Ball and The Nation contributor Aaron Maté, who has speculated that Democratic leaders are eager to set up an impeachment trial in the Senate in order to keep 2020 progressive frontrunners Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., off the campaign trail.
"While such a possibility is obviously insane, if you consider the struggle between left-wing populists and evil neoliberals to be the central dynamic in American politics, it might seem at least plausible," Chait wrote.
He also called out left-leaning Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi for expressing pessimism about Russia investigation and the Ukraine scandal, as well as his suggestion that those "pushing hardest for Trump’s early removal are more dangerous than Trump" as well as The Intercept editor Glenn Greenwald for creating "strange-bedfellow alliances" on the right, pointing to Greenwald's appearances on "Tucker Carlson Tonight."
"The fact that anti-anti-Trump leftists have interests that coincide with Russia’s compounds the dynamic," he explained. "There is zero reason to suspect any of them have covert ties of any kind with Russia. Their arguments are perfectly explainable in normal terms. Russia has helped amplify their ideas because it suits Russia’s agenda."
Chait continued, "But what brought them to this strange place is their hatred for the center-left, which blots out any sense of proportion of the danger Trump poses... Many leftists can imagine a bigger risk than the Establishment neutralizing Trump before he can bring the system down. Yet somehow, the emergency of his growing authoritarianism has not concentrated every mind, and the election of Trump has not dispelled the fantasy that his destruction of the center and the center-left will lead ultimately to a better world."
Some of the namedropped journalists reacted to Chait's commentary.
"All I want for Christmas is for Jonathan Chait to accuse me of being an insufficiently obedient Democrat," Ball reacted.
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"Remember when Chait’s vision for the Democratic ticket was John McCain?" Taibbi mocked the writer.
"Self-described 'Peeliever' has some thoughts about non-Peelievers," Maté hit back, referring to the unsubstantiated "pee tape" claim in the infamous Steele dossier.