ICYMI: ‘Don’t Vote’: A Look At Blake Masters’ Emails To His Vegan Co-op At Stanford University [HuffPost]

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HuffPost: ‘Don’t Vote’: A Look At Blake Masters’ Emails To His Vegan Co-op At Stanford University

A trove of emails from 2006 found Masters – who’s now a Republican Senate candidate – disparaging democracy and defending a 9/11 conspiracy theorist.
By Kevin Robillard
September 7, 2022

Key Points:

• As a college student, Blake Masters ― now the GOP candidate for U.S. Senate in Arizona ― defended a classmate’s skepticism of the “official story” of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

• He also told his roommates that voting was pointless and often “immoral,” railed against health inspections as “bullshit,” and said America circa 2006 was “fascist.”

• Masters’ past comments, on blogs, in interviews and even on a Crossfit message board, have already become major issues in the race. His opponent in the primary, businessman Jim Lamon, spent millions on ads noting that Masters had referred to the Unabomber as an “underrated” thinker, and the Anti-Defamation League has criticized posts and articles Masters wrote suggesting that the “Houses of Morgan and Rothschild” were partially responsible for America’s entry into World War I.

• To win his primary, Masters espoused a variety of hard-line views, calling for the overturn of the Supreme Court cases guaranteeing a right to contraception and same-sex marriage, [and] backing former President Donald Trump’s lies about a stolen election in 2020.

• Many of the emails… decry American politics and elections as little more than a scam.

• In May 2006, the Department of Defense released footage of American Airlines Flight 77 striking the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001 ― prompting another Stanford student to send off a lengthy email questioning the official story of the attacks and recommending the website of Scholars for 9/11 Truth. Masters quickly defended his fellow student’s skepticism.

• “I just want to point out that there is absolutely nothing wrong with being a ‘conspiracy theorist’ or a ‘revisionist historian,’” Masters wrote, adding: “Given how many state-run conspiracies and official revisionist projects have taken place in recent history … it would be crazy to pretend that such things are no longer possible, or that ‘it couldnt happen here…’”

• “The story we’ve been told about 9/11 may indeed be correct, but blindly accepting it would be an error… Masters continued.

• “When something like 9/11 happens, you’ve gotta ask, ‘who benefits?’ There are a couple of different answers to the question, and we ought to evaluate them all, including our alleged protectors. Especially when the U.S. government has shown in the past that sacrificing citizens for political goals is something that its willing to do.”

• “[D]o you know why the US entered WWI? it wasnt to ‘make the world safe for democracy,’” Masters wrote. “The US went in to save banking interests and to fulfil [President Woodrow] Wilsons personal fantasy dream of a world government. The Lusitania was sacrificed and used as a propaganda tool. Read on, and get pissed. This shit is going on right now with George W. Bush.”

• In January 2006, at a time when George W. Bush was in the White House and Republicans controlled both the House and the Senate, Masters emailed his classmates with a provocative subject line: “Fascism + America = right now.”

• “The thesis is that the United States government is fascist. I hope that you find the analysis interesting and illuminating,” Masters wrote in the email.

• On Election Day 2006, he… [shared] an op-ed he’d submitted to The Stanford Daily. “Economically speaking, you’re wasting your time at the polls,” Masters wrote. “Sure, you can get all patriotic on me and claim some subjective inner fulfillment of your duty as a good citizen and all that mumbo jumbo. Fine. I can’t argue with you there. But your vote is meaningless and it will not affect the outcome. Period.”

• “I encourage you not to vote today, because it’s simply not worth your time,” he wrote.
  
  

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