Trolling for Trump: How Russia Is Trying to Destroy Our Democracy

[synergie]

Piece is co-written by Clint Watts, who testified today. He was saying this 2 days before the election.

https://warontherocks.com/2016/11/trolling-for-trump-how-russia-is-trying-to-destroy-our-democracy/

Trump isn’t the end of Russia’s information war against America. They are just getting started.

...

And the evidence is compelling. A range of activities speaks to a Russian connection: the theft of emails from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign officials, hacks surrounding voter rolls and possibly election machines, Putin’s overt praise for Trump, and the curious Kremlin connections of Trump campaign operatives Paul Manafort and Carter Page.

But most observers are missing the point. Russia is helping Trump’s campaign, yes, but it is not doing so solely or even necessarily with the goal of placing him in the Oval Office. Rather, these efforts seek to produce a divided electorate and a president with no clear mandate to govern. The ultimate objective is to diminish and tarnish American democracy. Unfortunately, that effort is going very well indeed.

...

Until recently, Western governments focused on state-to-state negotiations with Putin’s regime largely missed Russian state-to-people social media approaches. Russia’s social media campaigns seek five complementary objectives to strengthen Russia’s position over Western democracies:

Undermine citizen confidence in democratic governance;
Foment and exacerbate divisive political fractures;
Erode trust between citizens and elected officials and democratic institutions;
Popularize Russian policy agendas within foreign populations;
Create general distrust or confusion over information sources by blurring the lines between fact and fiction

More at link.

[Cha]

1. Exactly Clinton Watts! putin and his murderous gang are just

getting started.

The Dems are right to be going after the repubs on this.. first and foremost.. that doesn't mean they can't fight them on other fronts, too.

Mahalo, synergie, for shining the Light

[Cha]

2. Here's an interesting Tweet on russia's role in our Election..

Link to tweet

[sheshe2]

3. K&R

Late here...gotta go.

Kicked

[Duppers]

4. K & R for a great article.

I had never heard of warontherocks.com and will check out the site. Thanks for posting.

[Cha]

5. lol@Marmel

Link to tweet

[betsuni]

6. K&R

[mcar]

7. Good info

Thanks.

[George II]

8. Here are two perfect examples of misinformation (FAKE news) from Breitbart when Bannon...

...was still in charge. The "man on the street" casual reader would atually BELIEVE this crap!

trump Jacksonville Florida Rally:




Cleveland Cavaliers' Championship Rally:





trump Portland Maine Rally:





Cleveland Cavaliers' Championship Parade:

[synergie]

9. The brainwashing of the echo chamber!

They're not even done well, sloppy propaganda for people they know are not smart enough, not industrious and not even going to bother questioning the lies.

Basically, Trump's base.

Thank you for posting that, George. It's shocking to see how blatant the lies are and how many people bought it, despite it's sloppiness.

[hollowdweller]

10. What about if the ultimate goal is to promote a civil war?

Destroy the US from within w/o firing a shot?

[synergie]

12. They don't need an actual civil war.

They just need internal bickering, and the opposition party unable to function with it's members attacking each other. The party in power is already under control via blackmail and or means.

The ultimate goal is to topple the US from its leadership role and to undermine the very idea of democracy.

[brer cat]

11. Very good read, synergie.

Thanks for posting! K&R