Better way of looking at it is: what would the effect be of the media letting a psychopath through until the late stages, letting the election get close, and then and only then actually educating the voting public on some of the most unsavory parts of his past?
The answer, if it isn't clear, is in the 50% bump in debate viewers over the 2008 election.
It's a two-person race. It's zero-sum. To materially oppose one candidate is to materially support the other. That is, i assume, why Trump's campaign keeps claiming they coordinate directly with Assange through an intermediary.
Can someone (calmly) explain why anyone should take seriously the idea that Assange can singlehandedly run virtually the entire opposition research campaign against Hillary Clinton and not be supporting Trump?
If I want to be internally consistent as a supporter of truth/justice/liberty/all those tasty things, I MUST NOT hesitate to release damaging information along those lines for the sake of a "lesser of two evils" justification. Your statement of zero-sum two person race is also a principle I believe one must sacrifice a "lesser of two evils" discussion to rally against, I believe that accepting we are in a two person race is part and parcel with the level of polarization/group-think we're seeing nowadays. The first steps to a better world in my eyes are to question EVERYTHING and become as vehemently anti-tribal as possible, and that means not withholding things that my moral code would demand I act on, even if it might harm the horse I'm rooting for. (quite to the opposite actually, if I saw that my main candidate had flaws and wasn't getting called out on them, I would see it as my obligation to do so even MORE so, since to whitewash in that direction to my eyes weakens what would otherwise be a valid stance. e.g., all things have negatives, even perhaps a positive choice, but to ignore them is duplicitous.)
tl;dr, my goals in this are not "this election" or "this candidate"; it's "getting people to question more"; "getting people to realize it doesn't NEED to be a zero-sum game". One may say this is idealistic/drop in the ocean etc; but I cannot reconcile with my personal philosophy giving up, because if I did, then there is no justification for ANYONE ELSE to push for these "impossible" goals, and thus the status quo/tragedy of the commons continues.
The problem is that what Wikileaks is doing is much worse than that.
No, not buying it.
https://www.rt.com/usa/361459-secretary-clinton-drone-assang...
She explicitly asked to have Assange assassinated -> people laughed -> until they realised she was serious because she offers arguments why it would be better to kill him.
My 2 cents: Assange is anti establishment and that's why he helps Trump.
It was on 23rd Nov 2010.
It's not nothing, but it's pretty damn close.
Perhaps the idea is that they might get off easier if Trump feels Wikileaks gave him an election present, but I find that to be a high risk gamble, especially at this point. That said, the argument could perhaps just as easily be made if they leaked a bunch of Trump stuff too.
I don't think anyone can really determine motives at this point with the current base of information.
He thinks Trump will severely harm America, and he really hates America.
We all wanted Bernie, but he sold out :-(
In a two horse race, throwing stones in front of one horse has an obvious and calculated effect.
There was a time when I believed in Wikileaks.
But collusion, orchestrated or not, with Putin and Trump crosses a clear line.
When you sell your services or align your actions with fascists, you are not longer serving the public interest, merely your own.
Let's not equivocate. Trump is an opportunistic fascist, apparently with aspirations to become America's analog to Putin the authoritarian fascist thug.
The cynic in me wonders what Putin has on Assange.
I can't read Hillary Clinton's mind. I can't realtalk with Julian Assange. I can't read Trump's emails. I'm not part of any intelligence community.
Was the announcement of the video timed to preempt the Wikileaks Podesta emails, or were the emails released as a direct reaction to the video? Is Wikileaks a puppet or the media? Nobody has the relevant meta-information to discern this. We're getting bombarded with scandalous new information against both candidates on a daily basis, so much so that it's nearly impossible to meaningfully judge their weight and discern who the bad actors really are.
What happens from this is we in our Trump or Hillary bubbles, or whatever bubble we may be in, with full-time jobs and a family to feed don't have the time to invest in these issues. This is really the logical conclusion of the problem with Internet/information bubbles.
The US is in a post-fact world where people get their opinions from the media rather than facts (though to some extent it's always been that way). When Wikileaks, a supposed bastion of free information appears to be biased or compromised, perhaps from possible grudges by Assange or international influence, we lose another source of that meta-information.
But these women are coming out on their own because of cooper's question? I don't understand.
In this case, we had Trump attempting to cast the video as entirely just talk, with no action involved. I think it's entirely within expectations that someone that had experienced this behavior may have had their hopes of justice which had risen during this incident dashed (given there wasn't an actual person to respond, just the video), and decided that was the straw that broke the camels back.
We saw this with Cosby as well, or do you think he's innocent? If you think he's not innocent, how do you explain all the people that only really spoke up loudly after the main report? We see this all the time. Coming forward is a risk, and until the perceived risk is lowered, you may not see many (or any people).
Now, it is possible that the people coming forward are making it all up, as it's always a possibility, but given the video and Trump's very affirmative statements on the video (of a 60 year old man, mind you. He should have learned long ago what is and is not okay with regard to sexual advances), I think it's far more likely that at least some of the women coming forward are telling the truth.
Implied in it is the idea that the Clinton campaign had an obligation to release their opposition research on Trump as soon as they had it. But of course, they have no such obligation: they're not journalists!
On the other hand, Wikileaks clearly is structuring their releases to draw out the impact on the Clinton campaign and (vainly) to blunt the impact of Trump's own behavior (mostly, Clinton has won the news cycles despite these attempts).
But Wikileaks is not supposed to be an organ of the Trump campaign. Unlike the HRC campaign, Wikileaks ostensibly does have an obligation to serve the public interest. It clearly does not honor that obligation; instead, it's transparently servicing the Trump campaign.