Corey Stewart’s odd attack on his Democratic opponent is apparent attempt to link Kaine with protesters clashing with white supremacists

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The Republican nominee for US Senate in Virginia on Friday tweeted out a bizarre Photoshopped image of his Democratic opponent, Tim Kaine, shaking hands with Joseph Stalin.

Under the hashtag #AntifaTimKaine, Corey Stewart described Kaine meeting Stalin to discuss “economic policy” in 1944. Kaine, who was the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 2016, was born in 1958.

The tweet seemed to be an attempt to link Kaine with protesters who have repeatedly clashed with white supremacists in cities across the US. Stewart has previously dwelled on the arrest of Kaine’s son after an anti-Trump protest in 2017.

“Antifa” is an abbreviation of “anti-fascist”. In 1944, the US and Britain were allied with the Soviet Union, which was communist. Their mutual opponent, Nazi Germany, was fascist. The image of Stalin in Stewart’s tweet appeared to have been taken from an original of the Russian leader shaking hands with Harry Truman, who is also holding the hand of Winston Churchill, at Potsdam in 1945.

The tweet was the latest bizarre social media gambit by a candidate who has played up his support for Donald Trump and who was backed by the president on Twitter in June. On Thursday, Stewart’s account tweeted a Photoshopped picture which purported to show a young Kaine with leftist guerrillas in Central America. It was quickly pointed out that the fighters shown in the doctored image were in fact rightwing contra rebels from Nicaragua.

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Stewart has faced repeated questions over his ties to the far right, including his use of two neo-Confederate brothers as volunteer security officials.

Responding on Friday, Kaine’s spokesman, Ian Sams, tweeted the Stalin image and three pictures of Stewart: two in which he posed with the Confederate battle flag and one in which he is seen with Jason Kessler, an organizer of the 2017 white nationalist march in Charlottesville during which a counter-protester was killed.

“Only one of these pictures is photoshopped,” Sams wrote.

Stewart has since denounced Kessler but he has been far more guarded about Charlottesville, echoing Trump’s comment that were “some very fine people on both sides”. Stewart blamed “half the violence” on counter-protesters and criticized “weak Republicans [because] they couldn’t apologize fast enough”.

Stewart has also had to disavow his ties with Paul Nehlen, a fringe congressional candidate whom Stewart once called “a personal hero”. Nehlen has repeatedly made antisemitic and white nationalist comments.

While campaigning for Roy Moore in last year’s special election for US Senate in Alabama, and defending the judge from allegations of sexual assault, Stewart claimed Barack Obama’s birth certificate was a forgery.

Ian Sams (@IanSams) Whoa I can't believe they found this pic of November 6, 2018, at 7:00 PM: pic.twitter.com/vAaUcRqY62

The Republican, who serves in local office in northern Virginia, has both repeatedly tried to tie himself to Trump and campaigned vocally on his support for the retention of Confederate monuments.

National Republicans have distanced themselves from Stewart and the National Republican Senate Committee has pointedly declined to endorse him. The most recent poll of the Virginia race had Kaine at 49% and Stewart at 26%.

On Friday, Sams followed his response to Stewart’s Stalin tweet with a mocked-up picture in which Kaine, as Union general Ulysses S Grant, shook hands with Stewart as the defeated Confederate, Robert E Lee. The caption referred to the date of the election when it said: “Whoa I can’t believe they found this pic of 6 November 2018 at 7pm.”