It's a damage control talking point, see Wikileaks (which at this point is basically a Russian propaganda mouthpiece) immediately suggesting it.
1. https://www.rt.com/tags/the-julian-assange-show/
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_(TV_network)#Propaganda_cla...
There's a Russian behind every curtain! They're perhaps the most powerful country on earth! Literally everything (from Bernie to Jill Stein to Trump to the NRA) is Russina backed! ZOMG!
I'm guessing you haven't ever read anything about McCarthyism. https://theintercept.com/2017/02/23/the-increasingly-unhinge...
But back in 2016: Obama said there was “no serious” person who would suggest it was possible to rig American elections, adding, “I’d invite Mr. Trump to stop whining and go try to make his case to get votes.” [0]
I wonder how public opinion shifted. Back in 2016, the idea of rigging elections with facebook ads was alex-jones-level of tinfoil conspiracy, and now we are discussing it as an obvious, cheap and effective tactic.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election/obama-tells-...
Obama probably felt that he would have damaged the democratic party by saying anything else.
What about the founder of Wikileaks working for Russian propaganda media, which is what we're discussing here? I'm not sure what your motivation to deflect on this is.
He's talking about McCarthyism, which is very relevant to the subject at hand.
You are absolutely correct, however I would argue that it has only relatively recently entered the common HN lexicon. The vast majority (~675 out of 704^) of comments using it here in the comments are < 2 yrs old.
Admittedly the first comment on HN that used the term is 7 years old, but that comment [0] predates the creation of the wikipedia article (frequently trotted out when invoking the term here) by about a year.
As an aside, I'd love see a dataviz app that shows the lifecycle of terminology and memes that thrive in various internet discussion boards.
0) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2944345
^well it'll be 705 including this post ;)
Again, that still doesn't make it new or intellectually dishonest to point out.
Not accusing you of the above, but "Whataboutism" is as old as double-standards it draws attention to. But IMHO the accusation is more often use for ill than for good.