Trump supporters who in recent months have come to see Wikileaks as a valuable ally, have become deeply frustrated since yesterday afternoon. As #TrumpTapes trends on Twitter, Bill Mitchell asks:
Will the media completely ignore Wikileaks? Will the debate ignore Wikileaks?
— Bill Mitchell (@mitchellvii) October 8, 2016
And one “Bronze Age Pervert” from the ranks of the nationalist, fascist, nudist, bodybuilders lining up behind Trump, says:
This was TIMED and COORDINATED by both puppet GOP and DEM establishments to coincide with Wikileaks. Last stand of oligarchy against Trump.
— Bronze Age Pervert (@BronzeAgePerv) October 8, 2016
It’s not hard to understand the pervert’s suspicions about that the timing of the release of the #TrumpTapes.
Even so, for those who assume that by nefarious means Julian Assange got outmaneuvered, why didn’t he just postpone the release of his latest batch of “revelations” about Hillary Clinton?
(But just to be clear: It turns out that the actual sequence of events leading up to the release of the #TrumpTapes story had nothing to do with Wikileaks.)
It required no genius to anticipate what would dominate the news cycle in the hours leading up to the next presidential debate, so why allow the Wikileaks story to so easily get buried?
Is the Wikileaks bureaucracy so cumbersome in its operations that a last minute course correction was impossible? I kind of doubt it, since that really just boiled down to one man’s choice.
On the contrary, the fact that Wikileaks pressed on in such a quixotic fashion is more likely a reflection of its own internal assessment of the shock-value of the latest leaks: that in terms of actual content, they were close to worthless.
Instead, what turned out to look slightly more promising would be another opportunity to promote the narrative of Wikileaks as the victim. At least on social media a few people could cry foul.
In addition, having trolled the media earlier this week with a news conference that turned out to be a boring birthday celebration, and having been berated by Alex Jones as “a Hillary butt plug,” Assange knew his already dwindling credibility would be decimated if yet again he delivered nothing.
