I remember when Obama when to the UK to voice his support for Macron in the UK elections. Does that not count as a USA-sponsored ad? Because it sure has the same effect and intention as one.
Why the double standard?
Why the double standard?
(Given the levels of ad targeting possible, this also is a possible argument against domestic targeted election ads)
Every politician whether they were tech literate or not got on Facebook and Twitter after Obama won. Facebook has enabled the propping up of unqualified to govern but qualified to be "like"d candidates all around the world.
They have done serious damage to society in the last 10 years and we are just getting started as people realize the damage.
Barack Obama had been in electoral politics, as first a state and then US senator, for just over a decade before being elected President, and had been widely hailed as an up and coming star in the party and likely future Presidential candidate after his national convention speech when running for the US Senate.
He was not at all an “overnight political success”.
> considering the others who make it their entire careers and never reach the pinnacle.
Sure, by that standard anyone who succeeds does so meteorically, since only a handful do per generation, while many spend whole careers in politics. But that just means the standard is nonsense.
But otherwise, there is a double standard. However, your Obama anecdote doesn't demonstrate the double standard at all. Obama was being totally transparent in his support of a candidate in a foreign election. There was no attempt to disguise his intent to influence the election. It was a straightforward endorsement.
A better example of the double standard would be ignoring the US-backed overthrow of democratically elected leaders like Allende in Chile and Mossadegh in Iran, the best known of the many instances of the US covertly influencing the political process in other countries.
That a country that the US has been a traditional adversary of tried to influence US affairs isn't really that surprising. That the attempt has been brushed off or even welcomed in some sections of US society is perhaps the novel part.