I only engaged on Facebook with random “leftists,” which in 2016 and 2017 is not about policy but rather about how much one hates the Democratic Party, one time in the months before the election. This was right before the election. I was told that there was no reason to vote for the Democrats since Hillary would start World War III with Russia. I quickly regretted my decision. But we all know how happy the far left was to be useful idiots for Putin. Jill Stein traveling to Russia before the election was the peak but there was the consistently terrible coverage from The Nation, which of course is usually good on other issues than Russia. But it was all over the place. This is a good run-down of the useful idiots. And I bring you this particular anecdote.

Another Nation staple, contributing editor Doug Henwood, has maintained a professional relationship with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, yet is apparently very tetchy about the collaboration, as I also discovered when I engaged him. Henwood had planned to work with Assange on putting out a book about Hillary Clinton’s Goldman Sachs speeches—Henwood annotating, Assange writing the foreword—transcripts of which were of course originally hacked by Russian intelligence and disseminated through WikiLeaks, at least according to 17 different U.S. intelligence agencies, two of which concluded that this was done with the express purpose of helping Trump get elected. When I brought up this pending project, as detailed both on the book publisher’s website and in multiple articles, Henwood called me a “fucking idiot.” (Henwood’s publisher, when contacted for this story, noted that Henwood was no longer affiliated with the endeavor, saying that he had now grown “weary of chronicling Hillary Clinton’s boundless political shortcomings.”)

Henwood and Assange are made for each other. Which is tragic because when Henwood talks about the economy he is great and when he talks about politics he is absolutely out of his mind. But then I’m probably a “fucking idiot” too.