I'm just gonna say this once

[Tom Rinaldo]

Russia wanted to hurt Hillary Clinton. Their assessment, just like that of all the experts here, was that she would soon become our next President. Anything that they could do to bloody her nose, they were motivated to do. That meant, among other things, trying to help Trump. That meant, among other things trying to help Stein. That meant, among other things, trying to help Sanders. That would have meant, among other things, trying to help any other Democrat who ran a credible race against Hillary in the primaries. If Joe Biden had entered the race, they would have tried to exploit differences between Biden and Hillary also, and between their supporters.

I believe Donald Trump was in of it. I believe it is possible that Jill Stein was in on it, but I am not as certain about her as I am about Trump. I believe Sanders was not in on it. Nor would Biden etc. have been in on it had he also run. We have a political system that allows open competition not only for elected offices, but for nominations to run for elective offices. Elections and primaries, both are part of American Democracy. Both are essential aspects, in my opinion, but primaries in particular can be fertile ground for external meddling. Activists are usually passionate about their choices. Here on DU, I've been through Dean vs Clark vs Edwards wars. I've been through Obama vs Clinton wars, and I've been through Clinton vs Sanders wars. All of them got ugly. If some external force wants to throw fuel onto our internal fires, it is easy to do so. But it is anti Democratic to the core to blame candidates for the sin of competing with each other rather than simply lining up behind a front runner the way the former Soviet Politburo once did in public. There the knifing mostly happened in private.

People here may not all be in a position to remember, but lots of folks on every side got tombstoned here during all past primary wars. Last year was not unique. In all cases lots of good DU activists sincerely believed that opposing candidates and their core supporters were guilty of sundry dastardly deeds. One of the easiest ways to smear anyone on an activist board is through guilt by association. Obama got smeared through his association with Reverend what's his name, to cite a good example of how that works. What makes a smear a smear is when an association does not prove the crime alleged. Barack Obama was not anti-white in that former case. Donald Trump is accused of conspiracy with the Russians. If his team conspired with them than that accusation is not a smear, the documented association between him and the Russians would have criminal relevance. The Russians weighed in regarding Stein and Sanders also, attempting to boost them. They had their own reasons for doing so. If Stein or Sanders were willing knowing participants in that Russian effort, then accusations against them regarding conspiracy/collusion would not be smears. However if they were independently competing for votes without cooperating with the Russian attack, it is a smear against either of them to lump them in with the Russians, and they too then become victims of the Russian attack by hanging that charge around their necks.

Were benefiting in some way from Russian dirty tricks to become an acceptable reason to condemn a candidate's campaign, whether or not that candidate was in any way actually involved, that gives the Russians a classic twofer win win scenario. First they hurt their primary intended target, then they hurt whoever they lined up their bots to support by letting their support be leaked. And they sow chaos in the process, driving wedges between supporters who otherwise are in 90% agreement with each other regarding everything political.

I and millions of others supported Bernie in the primaries for reasons related to Bernie. I was not unsympathetic to Hillary in general, some may remember that I blogged for Hillary extensively on DU during the 2008 primaries. I had my reasons, which I tried to articulate at the time, for supporting Bernie over Hillary, but I backed Hillary over Trump in the General. So did the overwhelming majority of Bernie's core supporters. A small minority were no doubt influenced by Russian efforts against Hillary. And I fear a small minority of Hillary supporters will be influenced by continuing Russian efforts to divide us now.

I actually have an amazing amount of Trust in Mueller's probe. If he uncovers actual evidence of collusion between either and/or both the Stein and Sanders campaigns and the Russians, I will adamantly damn the guilty parties. Until then I do not do guilt by non cooperative association.

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. And some of us believe other things that we probably cant say yet on DU.

[Binkie The Clown]

2. Americans are becoming more ignorant with every generation, and the ignorant are easy to fool. nt

[elleng]

8. because of repugs' strong, full and long-term efforts to promote ignorance.

[Binkie The Clown]

10. Exactly. They even have a "news" network devoted to misinformation. nt

[DURHAM D]

3. Do you think Tad Devine was in on it? nt

[Me.]

7. That's What I Want To Know

[DURHAM D]

9. and then there are all those unexplained mystery donations -

$35 million

What can you do when foreign nationals love you?

[Gabi Hayes]

4. She just stumbled in off the street, right? Shopping for some tea at the polonium kiosk?

?w=990

[Tom Rinaldo]

6. She may have been in on it, she may have been played

I am not at all convinced of her innocence, but I await more information from the Mueller probe before I will emphatically conclude that she was knowingly fully complicit. There definitely is, as they say, smoke. Where there is smoke there often, but not always, is fire.

[elleng]

5. Thank you, Tom. Been with you on a couple of those.

'But it is anti Democratic to the core to blame candidates for the sin of competing with each other rather than simply lining up behind a front runner the way the former Soviet Politburo once did in public. There the knifing mostly happened in private.'

[Glamrock]

11. Couldn't have said it better myself...

I curse too much....

[Hekate]

12. Very good, Tom. Thanks for this. We've got some rough days ahead...

They are not all behind us.

[Willie Pep]

13. Good points.

From what I saw online many of the "Never Hillary" people also turned on Bernie when he campaigned for Clinton in the general election, calling him a turncoat and a shill. You can still see people saying stuff like that in the comments sections of some left-wing websites like Truthdig.

I think there is a minority of people who are just very angry with the system and the Russians saw an opportunity to try to get these people to stay home or vote for Stein in the general. Most Bernie primary supporters voted for Clinton in the general election.

[Fresh_Start]

14. I think we also need to acknowledge that Russia wanted a weak America

and pro-trump anti-clinton was just one way to get there.

[oberliner]

15. Do you think you encountered any Russian fake online personaes

Amongst the Bernie Sanders community?

[Ezior]

16. (I'm not the OP) I think I didn't, but lots of useful idiots

I first read about Bernie in a German techie / software / misc blog. I generally trusted that guy because he has great software / hacker / security skills. Like many Germans, he's on the left side of the political spectrum on most issues compared to the US (but not very far to the left when it comes to social issues like gender, feminism, though he's not quite a "men's right activist" or plain homophobe either). So he liked Bernie's platform. Prison reform, single payer, limits to free trade and free markets, etc. I like those concepts, too. So I hoped that Bernie would win the primary.

But then the "useful idiot" part took place. The same blog reported about alleged voter fraud in the primary, and Hillary allegedly stealing the primary. We know now that this was a Russian narrative and only supported by some rare incidents and low-impact things like "Hillary was told a debate question in advance at a time when she had pretty much already won the primary". At the time, I still trusted that tech blog when it made it seem like those issues were more wide-spread and the DNC was full of corruption. The tech blog also joked about "Russia Russia Russia", noting that it's impossible to determine who hacked a system because the hacker can simply manipulate the system to look like it was hacked by Russians. And that's 100% true of course, BUT I didn't take into account that the Intelligence Community has a lot of ways to figure out who hacked a system – they can simply rely on reports by agents in Russia, they can use SIGINT, etc. The tech blog never took that into account. Only Russia jokes.

For me, it was a slow but steady conversion from "yeah, sure, keep talking about Russia, lol" to "jeesus christ, what the hell is going on, will nobody stop Putin?". I still see many posts in German discussions that are obviously written by lefties, but they can't accept the Russian interference. It's like JPR. Even German Trumpists have changed their arguments to "of course the Russians did it, but there was no collusion and the Russians favoured Democrats!" yesterday. Lefties? Not so much. They still talk about Hillary stealing the primary, Hillary wanted to start WW3, Hillary single-handedly killed Gaddafi, and other Russian BS. Really terrible to read those posts, knowing that I thought along some of the same lines just a year ago. One of them even brought up Hillary's health (wtf? I guess she's already dead by now?) and her e-mails. Oh yeah, and the US attempted to kill Castro, so obviously… (yada, yada).

Needless to say, I've stopped following the techie blog. When he started badmouthing "SJWs" and similar crap that finally crossed a line.

[oberliner]

17. Interesting

Thanks for sharing those insights about your experiences.