In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce an American politician, Jill Stein (@DrJillStein). She’s best-known for her visits to Moscow, bids for the US presidency, blaming of NATO for the war in Ukraine, and for her inability to condemn Vladimir Putin as a war criminal.
1/23
Stein’s background is in medicine, and she graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1979. During the 90s Stein turned to activism and subsequently received various environmental awards for her work. Stein began her political career by running for governor of Massachusetts...
2/23
...in 2002, but only got 3,5% of the total vote. Her following campaigns were also massive failures, and the only election in which she managed to secure a seat was the local legislative body in Lexington. But that didn’t stop Jill, as in 2012 she decided to run for...
3/23
...president with the Green Party. Her campaign consisted of unrealistic promises of “putting 25 million people to work,” and she was endorsed by people like Russia-funded Chris Hedges, CODEPINK founder Medea Benjamin and academic and genocide denier Noam Chomsky.
4/23
In 2012, Stein received 0,36% of the total vote, which is why she also decided to run again in 2016. This time she decided on a different strategy - in 2015, she travelled to Moscow to attend the RT 10th anniversary party. While there, she criticized US foreign policy...
5/23
...and human rights situation. She was seated together with Vladimir Putin, but somehow failed to remind him that Russian imperialism is bad and Russia should stop annexing and invading sovereign countries. For this, she blamed the language barrier (Putin speaks English).
6/23
Unlike Donald Trump, both Hillary Clinton and Jill Stein released their tax returns. Surprisingly, Stein had around 8,5 million USD invested in funds in industries she had harshly criticized, including energy, financial, tobacco, pharmaceutical and defense contractors.
7/23
Stein ultimately received 1% of the national vote in the 2016 election, but she played a significant role in the swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, as Trump’s victory margin was smaller than Stein’s total votes in these key battleground states.
8/23
Following Trump’s victory, Stein spearheaded an effort to recount votes in three swing states. The recount was a lost cause, but Stein managed to fundraise 7,3 million USD for it. In May 2018, only 1 million of the money was spent and the rest is allegedly stashed somewhere.
9/23
Naturally, the Republicans and the Russians knew that a third-party candidate could help Trump grab the presidency. Trump-operative Roger Stone had previously used third-party candidates to grab votes from the Democrats, and according to a 2018 report, the Russians...
10/23
...had launched a pro-Stein online campaign promoting Stein and her policies. For example, the employees of Yevgeny Prigozhin-led troll factory Internet Research Agency tweeted the phrase “Jill Stein” over 1000 times during the elections.
11/23
During the 2020 elections Jill was hibernating, but she’s back in the race for the 2024 presidential elections. According to Stein, her main priorities are being “anti-war”, supporting universal healthcare and “pledging to stop genocide” in Palestine.
12/23
On 16 Sep 2024, Mehdi Hasan interviewed Stein over her policies and presidential bid. In one of the most absurd conversations ever, Hasan asked Stein whether Putin was a war criminal, but she failed to condemn him as one (like she did in case of Biden and Netanyahu).
13/23
In addition, Jill’s promoting the main Russian narratives about the war in Ukraine. She’s repeating the lie about NATO agreeing to “not move one inch to the east,” spread the lie about the US formeting a “coup” where “ultra-nationalists and ex-Nazis came to power”.
14/23
When asked about Crimea, Stein stated that “These are highly questionable situations,” and that “Russia used to own Ukraine.” In the same interview, she repeated her lie about a “US-orchestrated coup” in Ukraine. When asked whether Putin was a “incipient despot”,...
15/23
...she answered: “To some extent, yes, but there could be a whole lot worse,” again blaming NATO and the West for the crisis: “we needlessly provoke him and endanger him and surround him with war games,” neatly forgetting Putin’s invasions starting with Chechnya in 1999.
16/23
Stein was also a speaker at the “Rage Against the War Machine” event, where vatniks and tankies gathered around to call for the end of aid to Ukraine, bash the US and NATO and whitewash Russia’s war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine.
17/23
As is tradition, Jill also supports Syria’s brutal dictator Bashar al-Assad. In 2016, she deleted a tweet saying that “The US should be working with Syria, Russia, and Iran to restore all of Syria to control by the [Assad] government.”
18/23
Some (including me!) consider her to be a “spoiler candidate” - a candidate who knows they have no chance of winning, but who can still affect the vote in battleground states and help the other candidate win. I mean, she did the same thing during the 2016 elections.
19/23
In 2016, the Stein campaign - with the help of the Russians - targeted heavily the African-American population. This time they seem to be focusing on the Muslim vote in the swing states, and a recent CAIR survey indicates that this strategy has been fairly successful.
20/23
While Stein is considered to be a general laughing stock over here on X, her supporters and promoters are running a relatively successful campaign on platforms with younger audiences, like TikTok, where she targets mostly Democrat voters.
21/23
Jill Stein has absolutely no path to win the presidency, but just like she did in 2016, she can help Donald Trump to win. Trump has relatively low support among the US Muslim community, which is why using Stein to get those votes is a brilliant and cunning strategy.
22/23
The New Republic’s Peter Rothpletz has claimed that “Jill Stein is killing the Green Party”, and that they should “ditch the malignant narcissist” responsible for its decline. And when you look at her “achievements” throughout the years, it’s hard to disagree.
23/23
My book titled “Vatnik Soup - The Ultimate Guide to Russian Disinformation” has been published, you can order it here:
Or if you prefer Amazon:
kleart.dk/webshop/p/vatn…
amazon.com/Vatnik-Soup-Ul…
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