Russia Doesn't Want Bernie Sanders. It Wants Chaos

[NurseJackie]

https://www.wired.com/story/bernie-sanders-russia-chaos-2020-election/?fbclid=IwAR0RHsCwHQsJYh79Qwi3i_dMt8PGeUtqWpt58OzIdjeNVQhyJaQim_GuaCM

Russia Doesn't Want Bernie Sanders. It Wants Chaos
The point of Kremlin interference has always been to find democracy’s loose seams, and pull.

If there’s one line intelligence officials have stuck to about Russian interference in US elections, it’s that it never stopped. Not after the 2016 election, not after the 2018 midterms, and certainly not now, well into the 2020 primary season. Which is why it should be no great surprise that, as The Washington Post first reported Friday, US officials warned Bernie Sanders that Russia is “attempting to help” his presidential campaign. It also shouldn’t be read as any kind of endorsement.

Sanders did vote against the Magnitsky Act in 2012, a notorious Putin bugaboo, which could arguably make him a more palatable candidate to the Kremlin. But the distinction between Russia’s support for Trump and Sanders then, as now, is that Russia wanted only Trump to win. Promoting Sanders was simply another means to that end, driving a wedge between two already fraught factions of the Democratic Party.

The 2020 playbook remains the same, say Clint Watts, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute who studies Russian interference efforts: Elevate Trump, play up that Sanders got a raw deal, and tear down the leading institutional Democrat—then Clinton, now Biden and Bloomberg. Instead of Jill Stein, 2020 has Tulsi Gabbard, who has not left the race and whom Russian media, Watts says, regularly praises.

“The Kremlin’s strategy for a year has been very straightforward,” Watts says. “They would like to see Trump reelected.”

[Watchfoxheadexplodes]

1. Russia wants trump

And to help Sander's will do just that.

[Bluepinky]

4. Just look at the divisiveness on DU?

Don’t allow Russian interference to divide us, pledge to support any Democrat or Democratic Socialist who wins the nomination. That being said, I don’t trust Tulsi, and I fear she may run as an Independent when she loses the nomination.

[Walleye]

2. I believe Clint Watts over anyone currently in the IC

[bucolic_frolic]

3. Democracy vs. Dictatorship

The world is dividing into two camps. Russia wants a weak, docile America with a fringe leader, they are hollowing out the political middle which is historically where vast numbers of people, consensus, a strong Federal State, and common sense reside. That's how America became a great power with the will to challenge fascism and support democracy. This is a power grab, a money grab, for the oligarchs against the common man.

Sanders is a pawn, and even if not complicit, he should tell us. He doesn't even do that.

By the way, this surfaced this morning.

Link to tweet

[dotism]

6. In re Tweet: Whoa. nt

[bucolic_frolic]

7. Yeah, and it's a well known recognized source who's on TV twice a week

[Bluepinky]

9. That's pretty gross, but it was also almost 50 years ago.

Dirt can be found on anyone. We’ll end up with Trump again if we demand a pure candidate. Trump has done awful things to women in actuality, not just some perverse fantasizing.

[bucolic_frolic]

10. Pretty fringe for the times

Today, very widespread. It says more about personality than anything else in my view.

[uponit7771]

5. Sanders has no historical swing state appeal outside of MOE, Biden has the most so of course Russia

... would want a Sanders nomination against their whore Trump

[BlueIdaho]

8. No, they want Trump as President

Right or wrong they see Senator Sanders as a means to an end.

[Fresh_Start]

11. wrong Russia wants the GOP to win, and they think Sanders can help do that nt

nt

[NurseJackie]

12. Yep... that's exactly right.