We have yet another excuse for Hillary Clinton losing what should have been an easily winnable election against Donald Trump. The excuses are getting even more bizarre. The Daily Beast reports on anti-Clinton rappers who were working for Russia:
Russia Recruited YouTubers to Bash ‘Racist B*tch’ Hillary Clinton Over Rap Beats
Wannabe YouTube stars and diehard Donald Trump supporters ‘Williams & Kalvin’ totally swear they’re from Atlanta. In reality, they were working for the Kremlin.
According to the YouTube page for “Williams and Kalvin,” the Clintons are “serial killers who are going to rape the whole nation.” Donald Trump can’t be racist because he’s a “businessman.” Hillary Clinton’s campaign was “fund[ed] by the Muslim.”
These are a sample of the videos put together by two black video bloggers calling themselves Williams and Kalvin Johnson, whose social media pages investigators say are part of the broad Russian campaign to influence American politics. Across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, they purported to offer “a word of truth” to African-American audiences.
“We, the black people, we stand in one unity. We stand in one to say that Hillary Clinton is not our candidate,” one of the men says in a November video that warned Clinton “is going to stand for the Muslim. We don’t stand for her.”
…Videos published by Williams and Kalvin in late 2016, especially in October, often engaged in fever swamp theories about Hillary Clinton and in some cases promoting Donald Trump directly.
One specific video published in October, prior to the presidential election, refers to Hillary Clinton as an “old racist bitch.”
“She’s a fucking racist,” the host says over a subdued rap beat. “And this woman is a witch,” he says as a picture portrays Clinton in Wizard of Oz attire. He goes on to praise Julian Assange for releasing hacked emails. “This woman, she’s sick on her head.”
Other videos are more explicit about urging people to vote for Trump.
“This is time for change. This is why I say that let our vote go for Trump. Because this man is a businessman. He’s not a politician. We can have deal with him,” Williams says in a video published in August of 2016. “Because I don’t see him as a racist. Because any businessman cannot be a racist because when you are a racist, then your business is going down.” He then makes a black-power fist as he endorses Trump.
For good measure, the video also stated that Barack Obama’s legacy was “police brutality, injustice [and a] lack of education for our children,” illustrated with Obama’s face giving way to Samuel L. Jackson’s character from Django Unchained.
Does everyone remember all those persuasive rap videos? Remember all those polls which showed that black voters voted for Trump instead of Clinton because of those videos from Williams and Kalvin? No. I don’t either. Nor is there any plausible explanation why Clinton’s favorability declined while Obama’s increased when they were attacking both if Williams and Kalvin were influential.
Attributing Clinton’s loss to the rap videos of Williams and Kalvin makes no more sense than to blame her loss on the $100,000 worth of Facebook ads allegedly purchased by Russia. On the other hand, if someone wants to argue that Williams and Kalvin were more effective in campaigning against Clinton than her most irrational supporters like Peter Daou were at campaigning for Clinton, I would be open to considering that argument.
The rap videos were ridiculous and probably convinced no one. However, hacking the DNC and doling out memos to change the subject when advantageous probably had some effect. It’s fairly clear Roger Stone and Wikileaks coordinated with the Russians. That still doesn’t mean Clinton didn’t lose because she was a terrible candidate, but we’ll see what Mueller finds.
First of all we don’t know for certain that Russia had anything to do with hacking the DNC. Even if they did, the email released by Wikileaks only revealed factual information about Clinton and the DNC. It primarily provided added confirmation about what we already knew. Even if the Russians were involved here, the loss remains’s Clinton’s fault.
It’s true there’s evidence the DNC info was from a leak and not a hack. But Julian Assange and Wikileaks have undeniable Russia ties. The truth of the memos is not as important as the timing of their release. I’m not defending Clinton, only trying to make the point that Russian influence shouldn’t be dismissed.