What's up with Russian apologists?

[betsuni]

34. They can't admit to themselves they've been manipulated by Russian propaganda.

They believe things that aren't true. That Democrats have the same economic policies as Republicans. That Hillary's policies weren't progressive (according to VOTER Survey data, Sanders and Clinton supporters were only 0.02 points apart on economic policy preferences -- the difference was that Sanders supporters were more pessimistic and imagined they were more progressive). Now the same with Biden (ironic that Hillary's health care plan was more progressive: Medicare at 55 while Biden's is 60). That people vote based on policy. That people voted for Trump because of economic anxiety. That black turnout was down because voters didn't like Clinton, when the reality was that black turnout was up 5 percent higher than in any elections in history in 2008 and 2012 and returned to usual in 2016.

They fell for all the Hillary propaganda. The New York Times called it the biggest trolling operation in history.

Steve Almond tells the story of Jon, a young friend of his, both Bernie Sanders supporters. When he saw him in June 2016, he was impressed by the way Jon spoke of economic injustice. But after the Democratic convention, he changed. Began to link to anti-Clinton stuff from strange websites. From "Bad Stories":

"The Russians made a calculated bet that a guy like Jon, if sufficiently goaded, would shift from an agenda driven by progressive goals to one driven by animus toward Clinton. Jon professed disgust for Trump. But his Facebook page was filled with links to articles vilifying Clinton. ... Here, too, his logic was tough to follow. 'This country can't survive another Clinton presidency,' he wrote to his chat group, who all just happened to be female Clinton supporters. 'Clinton will lead us into war. She'll create a corporate controlled police state.' When another member of his chat group asked him about the dangers of electing Trump, he replied, 'Why are you stuck on fear mongering?'

"I recognized Jon's rhetorical posture from my own years as a Ralph Nader crusader. He wanted to vote for someone he believed in, not the lesser of two evils, But his logic was that of a fatalist: the system was broken beyond repair, policies were empty promises to wage slaves like him. The conservative movement fosters this false equivalence, which breeds apathy and depresses turnout. 'A vote for hillary is a vote for trump,' Jon wrote a few weeks before the election, which is how you know he isn't a person of color, or a Muslim, or an immigrant. ... I only know that he spent hours upon hours online, absorbing agitprop aimed at him, and that he turned away from issues of economic uplift and committed himself, with increasing vigor, to trashing Clinton and agitating her voters. ... Over the course of a single campaign, his immersion in internet culture had transformed him from an American idealist into a Russian bot."

I was a member for years of an international chat group, considered them good friends. But they began to link to those fake news sites that I spent far too much time debunking. From the Snowden incident on, increasingly anti-American pro-Russia stuff. By 2015 I knew what was coming with Hillary, but it was much much worse than I ever thought possible. I lost respect for a lot of people for being so easily manipulated by transparently false garbage.