US Army Veteran David Weissman, a freelance writer and avid social media enthusiast, was made into a veteran of another kind of war entirely — one he may not have been ready for, even after two tours in Afghanistan. In the lead-up to and after the election of 2016, Weissman was a strong supporter of Donald Trump, and he got so caught up in the passion of it all, being such a controversial figure to support, that he found himself a part of Team MAGA.
That’s where Weissman went to battle: In a February column in the Times of Israel, he detailed not just what it was like to be a part of Team MAGA, both off- and online, but the behaviors and mindset that led him to leave the team behind and rethink his politics entirely.
To be clear, at the time he wrote that piece, he still absolutely supported Trump — he could just no longer handle being lumped in with the rest of Trump’s supporters, who in his experience called all reporting “fake news” unless it came from Breitbart or Fox, and who attacked him if he ever said anything online that could be construed as support for any liberal position or thought.
But all of that changed after the President’s trip to Helsinki.
Many people, both in the standard world of politics and in the national security community, made the Trump/Putin Summit into a sort of bellwether for their continuing support of Trump, and unlike the mostly Russian-generated movement among conservatives on Twitter called “#WalkAway,” this was actually happening.
That’s exactly where Weissman found himself, and in an affront to everything he thought he knew, the day of Trump’s joint press conference with the tyrant controlling Russia, David found himself apologizing to none other than Hillary Clinton — for not having listened all the way back during the campaign that Trump was under the dictator’s thumb.
@HillaryClinton I would like to apologize to you, wish I have listened to your warnings about Russia before I voted for Trump, you were right.
— David Weissman (@davidmweissman) July 16, 2018
Apologizing to someone you thought was “the enemy” less than two years ago can’t be easy. But as you can see, at the time of this writing nearly 10,000 people have commended Weissman on his hindsight.
Weissman isn’t wrong about what the Clinton camp said all the way back during the campaign, either. It’s easy to misremember a lot of the details of the last two years, since news has been rapid-fire and focus has shifted countless times among politicians and their followers.
But video can’t be disputed. Here’s a clip of Robby Mook, Clinton’s campaign manager, telling an incredulous Jake Tapper that the Russians were behind the hacking that was being reported — all the way back in July 2016. Watch:
Featured image via R. Nial Bradshaw/Flickr
