Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has donated thousands of dollars to anti-war Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard – and Twitter users and mainstream media journalists are (rather ironically) up in arms about it.
Dorsey gave the maximum donation of $5,600 to Gabbard's campaign a day after her appearance during the first Democratic presidential campaign in June, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings, reported on by BuzzFeed.
Of all the Democrat contenders for the 2020 nomination, the Hawaii congresswoman has been a favorite punching bag for US journalists, who have accused her of being “pro-Russia” due to her anti-intervention foreign policy stance. She has also been consistently targeted for meeting Syrian President Bashar Assad during a 2017 trip to the war-torn country, with the media deriding her as an "Assad apologist” ever since.
BuzzFeed’s own story on Dorsey’s donations even smacks of disbelief, claiming that Gabbard is “probably best known for her visit to Syrian dictator” Assad, despite the fact that she is obviously well-known for other things, like being a high-profile congresswoman and Iraq war veteran. Later, BuzzFeed notes that Dorsey also scandalously “faved a bunch of tweets” from and about Gabbard.
Other media reports were equally incredulous. A Gizmodo article on the FEC filings branded Gabbard an "odd duck" and Dorsey a "weird dude."
Needless to say, Dorsey’s own conspiracy machine – also known as Twitter – kicked into high gear, with people accusing him of being a Russian-bot-loving Assad apologist whose donations are “disappointing.”
An "award-winning investigative journo" even claimed the donations were proof that Jack is a "virulent homophobe"because Twitter is, apparently, "always banning gay people." The link to alleged homophobia stems from anti-gay comments Gabbard made decades ago before changing her views and running up a very pro-LGBT record in Congress.
A "New York based soccer agent" theorized that Dorsey's donations made perfect sense, since the Twitter CEO is "all in for Trump" and so naturally he would support the "Russian backed" Democrat too.
One freelance journalist lambasted Dorsey for supporting a candidate who has been “signal-boosted relentlessly” by “an army of paid Russian trolls” — a reference to an NBC story earlier this year that claimed, without evidence, that Gabbard was being “boosted” by Russian bots on Twitter.
The NBC story was quickly debunked, of course, but the claim still fits nicely with the new conspiracy theories about Dorsey himself being some kind of secret pro-Russian troll.
Meanwhile in the realm of unpopular opinions, other people had their own takes on why Dorsey did what he did.
Danielle Ryan
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