The dude has literally dozens of easily discoverable quote-bites of him excitedly expressing how much he loves killing, can’t get enough of it, wants to get back to doing it asap. How does he pass any smell test at all for anybody who is nominally on the left? I just don’t get it, I feel like he should be seen as so rotten that touching him would taint you (looking at popular youtubers and twitch personalities).
You’re not wrong. When the whole totenkompf thing happened, I looked into the other candidates in the race, and there are absolutely candidates that could fill his shoes. However, politically, they are even more non-viable than he is, just given the momentum he already has in terms of endorsements from people like bernie sanders and the whole infrastructure he has built up. It’s not as easy as just transferring all that momentum to another candidate, so people are willing to overlook his past in hopes that he is genuine. It’s not an ideal situation, by any means, but it does speak to the current political atmosphere, where progressive politics are so appealing that even problematic candidates are cracking through the noise.